-9- 



^ <y cf 




HAROLD 



AN EXPERIMENT 




OF Q °*G*r 

NOV 16 W- ! Jj 



New York and London 
THE GLOBE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
1891 



?Z3 

NY*""** 



COPTRISHTED. 1891. BT BECKLES WlLLSON. 



0 



sb 



"Educate him if you wish him to feel his degra- 
dation ; educate him if you wish to stimulate his 
craving for what he must never enjoy ; educate him 
if you would imitate the barbarity of that Celtic 
tyrant who fed his prisoners on salted food until 
they eagerly called for drink, and then let down an 
empty cup into the dungeon and left them to die of 
thirst ' ' — {Macaulav. 




1 



EAEOLD. 



CHAPTER I. 

11 Nor think them right : 
But hold it thus a prophecy, 
Who frees the slave, enslaves the free." 

— COLEEIDGE. 

London. Hot. Midday. Piccadilly and Regent 
Street bustle with vehicles and pedestrians. 

Brummels' Lane is situate precisely in the heart of 
the British metropolis. It is a little thoroughfare that 
looks invitingly cool, but so unconscionably obscure 
that, apart from its denizens, it is doubtful whether 
Brummels' Lane is ever penetrated save by an occa- 
sional cabman and certain sad-eyed individuals not 
unremotely connected with tailors' bills. 

Click. Clack. A carriage turns the corner of 
Westumberland Street. The hoofs of the horses 
make a fine metallic echo on the cobble-stones. An 
open carriage, and — shades of the fascinating Beau 
himself ! — a coronet emblazoned on the panels. 

Two persons are seated in this irreproachable equi- 
page, who appear, upon further inspection, to extract 
an enormous amount of interest from their surround- 
ings as they are being whirled along. 

Carriage suddenly stopping, footman gets down and 



6 



HAROLD, 



scrutinizes the numbers of the various dwellings com- 
posing the eastern extremity of Brummels' Lane. 
" Twenty-nine ?" 

" Ah ! he has found it," murmurs my lady. 

" Pope's Inn?" Correct. 

"Charles!" 

" Yes, your ladyship ?" 

" Ring and ask the porter if Mr. Inigo Bright is at 
home." 

Flunkey obeys orders grimly. One — two — three 
minutes elapse. Odd — -very. Is"o porter appears. 
Wait an hour, a day, a month, a year ; you will be sin- 
gularly adroit if you meet with better success. Pope's 
Inn is guiltless of porters. 

Five minutes. Manifest impatience in region of 
carriage. 

" Charles !" 

" Yes, your ladyship?" 

" Ascend the stairs and find out Mr. Bright's 
chambers. Knock and inform his servant — he has a 
servant, hasn't he, dear — What ! Charles, knock and 
inform Mr. Bright that Lord Middleton and Lady 
May Dubersly are below and would be delighted if he 
could join them. " 

Footman, with a respectful nod, takes himself off. 

"Do you think the drive has done you good, 
Henry ?" continues the fair speaker. " The air here 
is very cool." 

The other occupant of the carriage permits a wan 
sort of smile to suffuse his features. He moves his 
head forward slightly, and reaching for his compan- 
ion's disengaged hand, kisses it. 



HAROLD. 



" You are a good girl, May," he says, at length. 
" I don't deserve it. Yes, of course I feel much 
better, dear. I do hope Bright can spend the day 
with us. But perhaps, after all, he is out of town." 

Here the footman returns and delivers his message 
formally, after the manner of flunkeys to the nobility. 
Compliments of gentleman upstairs ; disliked to keep 
his friends waiting a single minute. Furthermore, 
would be ready to enter the carriage, punctually, in 
five, during which delay gentleman upstairs trusted 
his lordship would permit his lordship's coachman to 
drive them round into the square, by way of diver- 
sion. 

( u A cool one — damned if 'e ain't," vigorously as- 
severated his lordship's footman, an hour or so later. 
" Found 'im drinking coffee in bed an' perusink the 
Times. 'E made me 'and 'im 'is trousers and arsked 
me — arsked me, partickerly polite, if 1 wouldn't 
black 'is boots for 'im. Earls in garrets ! damn my 
eyes !" 

In five minutes the carriage has returned, and a 
young gentleman who has been waiting on the pave- 
ment is taken up. The ceremony is attended with a 
warmth^ of salutation edifying, in the extreme, to an 
outsider. That these two young men are positively 
attached to each other is evident before the equipage 
has rattled out of Brummels' Lane into the light and 
sultriness of "Westumberland Street. The newcomer 
has a look of distinction, being thin, pale, broad- 
chested, with a fibrous stock of sable hair. Lady 
May Dubersly has already addressed him as Mr. Inigo 
Bright. 



8 



HAROLD. 



"I was sorry you didn't come yesterday," begins 
his lordship. 

" 1 didn't leave the Times office once in twenty- 
eight hours," explains the other. 

" Really, old fellow, I am delighted to hear you 
are so epris with your work. Is anything up ?" 

" Anything, my dear Henry ? Have you read your 
newspaper to-day ?" 

" No ; first, because I was not in the mood, and 
because Sis was too busy dressing to read it to me. 
But tell me, what has happened ?" 

" Everything. The Americans have decided to 
make war in earnest." 

" Make war in earnest!" interrupts Lady May. 
" Mr. Bright, you really ought to be ashamed to 
talk in that way. It is wicked." 

" In earnest ! How ?" 

" President Lincoln having decided to free the 
slaves, signed a proclamation to that effect yesterday." 

There was silence for a moment. 

" A mistake — a blunder !" muttered the invalid. 

" 1 beg your pardon, Henry ?" says Inigo Bright. 

" A monumental blunder," repeats the young aris- 
tocrat, with a tinge of bitterness in his voice and look. 

" Dear, dear !" breaks in Lady May with a dis- 
tressing moue, " will you two never get weary dis- 
cussing theories and abstracts ?" 

" Who is discussing theories and abstracts ?" says 
her brother, smiling. 

" Oh, well, whatever you call it. Politics, politics, 
politics." 

" It's a relief from commonplaces about the weather 



HAROLD. 



9 



and the crops certainly/ ' says Henry Middleton, 
changing front good-humoredly. 

" Tut, tut, dear ! Tou know argument always 
leaves you weak." 

"A doctor's fallacy," suggests Inigo Bright. 
u Argument is good for your worthy brother's com- 
plaint. It occupies his miud and keeps him from 
becoming hypochondriacal." 

" You are such an oracle, Mr. Bright." 

" Not a complete one, I'm afraid," returns Mr. 
Bright, modestly. " For instance, 1 would not like 
to say whether the new crinoline Mrs. Cholmondeley 
brought out last month will secure vogue this fall." 

" Well, of all — !" exclaims Lady May, giving vent 
to a hearty laugh. " Perhaps you can tell me how- 
long we are to wear chignons and — and whether we 
can lay aside our hoops next winter or not ?" 

# # X «5f # 

And as they talk the coachman suddenly pulls up 
his horses before Lord Middleton's London house in 
Caermarthen Square. 



CHAPTER II. 



"A clever dog on his wits." — Scott. 

Lnigo Bright was the rising hope of that small and 
select politico-literary circle — the cognoscenti of Lon- 
don. He had already been marked for distinction. 
He was, to be more precise, twenty-six and a journal- 
ist. Naturally the mass of Londoners knew nothing 
of the man, but by his own sect Bright was regarded 
with a species of awe, curiosity, and admiration, to 
which, there is but little doubt, his extreme youth 
weightily contributed. Inigo Bright was no mere 
genius, at least no genius in fancy. What he knew, 
he knew, as the saying goes, and it would be hard 
to say which his associates most envied, his luck 
in being able to fasten upon knowledge or his capac- 
ity, having secured it, of retaining and arranging it. 
His broad familiarity with foreign affairs, his pre- 
cocious foresight where political issues were concerned, 
his brilliant style, his prodigious capacity for work, 
his talent for directorship — these were the young 
man's virtues. As for his vices — none knew ; he 
kept himself in the background too much. Perhaps 
they were his vices, too ; he kept himself in the back- 
ground too much, and yet not enough to be exempt 
from charges grounded in malice. 

" Cynic," said the rising young Flabbershare of the 
Morning Post. 



HAROLD, 



11 



Albeit half of his colleagues were a little afraid of 
him. 

" Morbid recluse," observed the sub-editor of the 
Telegraph. 

" Egotist," said another. 

Brutus of the Critic merely tapped his temples 
significantly. 

*3£ "ft *5£ 45" *X~ 

" He is a very great and wonderful man !" 

Ha ! It was little Coleridge Wrexham who spake. 
Coleridge is only a Parliamentary reporter, you know, 
but ambitious. He is an admirist, perhaps by tem- 
perament. 

" They said all that demned rot of young Pitt and 
young Napoleon," he added. 

Evidently little Coleridge is a person of perspicacity. 

These comments at the Town Club one evening in 
J anuary. 



CHAPTER III. 



" It is a prodigious task to lift an individual or a class from bar- 
barism to enlightenment and keep him there. The tendency is 
to relapse." — Hon. Senator Ingalls. 

Lord Middleton was lunching in Devonshire a 
couple of weeks after the conversation with which 
the present volume opens. Thither, to his country- 
seat, he had dragged off Bright, away from the 
latter' s arduous London work, to give him, as he 
expressed it, a " morsel of fresh air" and a " bit of 
landscape recreation." 

During the first short chats here of the two college 
friends Lady May Dubersly, his lordship's sister, was 
invariably present. Now, no one, it is certain, could 
be more agreeable than the London journalist when 
he wished to be. In spite of his pallor and ascetic 
appearance, he never showed the versatility or the rare 
talents he possessed to better effect than in the pres- 
ence of women. A smile he had that was singularly 
winning. Deficient in what is strictly called humor, 
Inigo Bright, on the other hand, never permitted him- 
self to be hopelessly erudite in his talk. It was a way 
he had as a young man of never letting his auditors 
know from his words to what depth, intensity, and 
completeness he was master of the subject in hand. 

Lord Middleton was a generous and rather witty 



HAROLD. 



13 



young nobleman, who often for weeks at a time never 
knew a moment's release from physical pain, and whose 
chief manner of spending the immense wealth derived 
from his estates was upon his doctors. To 'their shame 
be it said, they never fully succeeded in finding out* 
what was the matter with him. 

Lord Middleton and Bright tried at first to keep 
their pet theme of politics out of their talk, the one 
because he feared it would not interest the young 
lady, and his lordship, perhaps, because he was afraid 
he could never, from inherent instinct, agree with his 
brilliant friend. To-day the three had lunch spread 
for them on the lawn by the side of a miniature lake, 
and Lord Middleton told some funny stories he had 
heard about the Congo, and asked Bright if they were 
true. It was a warm, delicious afternoon, and Lady 
May was presently called to the house by a visit from 
an adjacent nobleman's lady. 

" Pardon me, my dear friend," broke in Middleton, 
suddenly, " but I think I have chanced upon a great 
secret of yours. It came out in our talk at Caermar- 
then Square the other day. The idea that it really is 
a secret and one you don't care to confide in me haunts 
me like a troop of Oxford creditors." 

" Indeed," said his comrade, shortly. 

"Now, my dear fellow, don't be angry ; but you 
alluded to an experiment in our talk with that Ameri- 
can the other day — an experiment you should like 
to see made with regard to the blackamoor race in 
general. Confess that it is your intention, at least 
your desire to make that experiment yourself." 

The pale brow of Inigo Bright flushed with sudden 



14 



HAROLD. 



animation. It was with difficulty that he restrained an 
impulsive movement. 

" It has been my hope for years, " he said at length, 
very quietly. 

' "It would be a great anthropological experiment 
of course," pursued Lord Henry. "It would prove, 
I suppose, whether or not a savage is capable of gen- 
uine refinement ; whether the 6 thoughts of man are 
widened with the process of the sims,' or — let us 
hunt for an epigram — whether the cannibal can bound 
in a single span into the chair of the savant." 

The other said nothing. Lady May returned pres- 
ently, and this highly interesting discussion wandered 
off momentarily into new fields. 

" See here, Inigo," the young nobleman took occa- 
sion to say the next day, apropos of nothing, " why 
can't we make such an experiment ? Ha, ha ! I know 
it sounds rather abrupt, but the fact is, I've been 
thinking about it all night. I say we, not because 
the credit of the thing, if there is any in the end, 
would belong to me or indeed not wholly to you, but 
because the enterprise would take money, and that at 
least I've got." 

" Suppose," pursued his lordship, " we were to get 
a little brat of a blackamoor and give him all the ad- 
vantages of Stuart Mill and Lord Chesterfield com- 
bined. That is the way I understand the idea. Is it 
not ? We are young and, by Jove ! the thing is 
practicable. Eh, Inigo \ Why don't you answer ?" 
he added, almost vehemently. 

In truth, his companion had remained perfectly still 
for a full minute, looking straight ahead into the 



HAROLD. 



15 



shadow of the great hedges which divided the estate. 
It was not hard to divine his feelings. In a word, 
this was the pet project of his youth. To yield it up 
even to his best friend staggered him for the moment. 

In the first tumult of his thought, it seemed to him as 
if he were about to relinquish a prize that he had picked 
up as he roamed, thinking and dreaming, over the 
better part of two hemispheres. But, then, now that 
his London work had been opened to him, was it not 
impracticable, and did it not, besides, lose half its in- 
terest alongside of the greater task he had already set 
himself. Again, was the whole idea merely an amuse- 
ment, an interesting diversion, this uprooting of a 
being of an opposite clime and transporting him as a 
botanist would an exotic ? 

" I fancy I looked at the experiment a little too 
seriously," he said to himself. " Besides , I can t 
afford to ride hobbies now P* 

" Do" you think it would interest you, this mad- 
man's caprice?" he asked aloud — "that is, enough 
to make the requisite sacrifices ?" 

"What sacrifices?" asked his friend, lightly — ■ 
i 4 pecuniary, moral, or intellectual ?" 

" Pecuniary, of course. Some money is needed 
to 4 gild the straitened forehead of the fool ;' a 
good deal ought to be necessary to idealize the 
brute." 

" Yes ; very often it is a golden millstone about a 
man's neck to stifle ambition and drag down Promise 
from her temple," said Lord Middleton, poetically ; 
" but at present I am in need of amusement. If 1 
get no worse for the next few years it will afford me 



16 



HAROLD. 



a stimulus. You see, I shall make it my hobby. I 
doubt, though, to be thoroughly frank, whether I 
shall get any intellectual pleasure out of it. Say, if 
you like, that I am wholly impelled by a woman's 
curiosity. Let me send for Holland, and we will talk 
it all over. Eh? Shall we ?" 

* ■* * # * # 

" Gad ! it's all like a story out of the 6 Arabian 
Nights,' " said Lord Middleton, a few nights later on 
his pillow. " I say, Taylor, Taylor !" 

Taylor was a brown-haired young man of starched 
aspect and mild demeanor, who continually attended 
the noble invalid. He rose sleepily up from a lounge 
at the other end of the apartment. 

" Tes, your lordship," he said, clearing his throat. 

" Was it Christopher Sly, the tinker, or — or — " 

" Hodges, the grocer," suggested the valet, respect- 
fully. 

" Tut, tut ! ]N"o. 1 mean the person in the book 
who is like Inigo Bright' s Experiment — the — " 

" Oh, yes," said Taylor, intelligently. 4i The—" 

" Taylor," observed his lordship, slowly and with 
emphasis, " you are a distinct ass." 

This was quite a new appellation. The valet pon- 
dered over it. Lord Middleton slept. 



CHAPTER IV. 



" O fit, my lord, fit, humbly fit !" 

— Mablowe. 

There lived, at this time, in a London suburb, a 
little, old solicitor who had once held the honorable 
post of confidential secretary and legal adviser to the 
late Arthur Dubersly, Marquis of Middleton, dur- 
ing that distinguished gentleman's Parliamentary ca- 
reer. He had ever since received a retainer from the 
heir. 

But it is still a proverb that the Duberslys never 
went into the courts, and it followed that the present 
office of legal adviser was an easy tenure. 

John Holland, the family solicitor, was a man of 
combined humility, high sagacity, and unquestioned 
probity. Being a bachelor, the old baronet used to 
say that nothing prevented his retainer's rise in the 
world but his extreme honesty and insufferable con- 
tentment. He looked sixty-five, but was nearly ten 
years younger, in point of fact. Holland was neither 
crabbed nor dried in countenance ; his face was that 
of a wall, especially in repose, which is tantamount to 
saying always. His mind and body were vigorous. 
His heart was as guileless as a child's. 

This was the man whom the nobleman and the 
rising journalist agreed upon as their missionary to 



18 



HAROLD. 



the Dark Continent. The story of that mission, shed- 
ding so great a light as it does upon the motives and 
moral of this book, is best made known to the world 
in the garrulous barrister's own words, recorded in 
the next chapter. 



CHAPTER Y. 



john Holland's narrative. 

" Come on, you thick-lipped brat, I'll bear you hence, 
For it is you that puts us to cur shifts." 

— Titus Andronicus. 

According to the instructions given me by your 
lordship, I shall now endeavor to set forth an exact 
account of all that transpired during my recent ex- 
traordinary mission to Senegambia, up to my return. 
I may preface my story by observing that such a 
mission at my time of life was a great surprise to me, 
and that although I appeared tranquil to my friends, 
my heart beat like a boy's at the prospect of adven- 
ture. 

I had decided to sail on the 12th of September, 
having made arrangements with the captain of a vessel 
bound for Sierra Leone and Cape Town to stop at 
Bissagos, islands some three hundred miles north 
along the coast, and from whence I was assured I could 
procure a boat for the mainland. On the 7th I gave 
notice to my landlady that 1 should, in all proba- 
bility, vacate my rooms for several months, in conse- 
quence of an urgent call which I had just then re- 
ceived. She seemed much shocked, for your lordship 
must know I have been a steady occupant of my lodg- 
ings at Hammersmith for nearly nineteen years. Pre- 



20 



HAROLD. 



vious to that I had resided in a street in Westminster 
with a German family, the head of which cut his 
throat one morning, owing to a failure of the hop 
harvest. Herr Spitz's wife was a pleasant little 
woman. I never shall forget her entrance into my 
chamber, shortly after the tragedy, to inform me of it. 
She said her husband had long been out of his right 
mind, but seemed to be chiefly fearful as to whether 
1 would continue to lodge with her after what had 
transpired. I was much shocked, and assured her it 
would not make the slightest difference, which, indeed, 
I did not think it would at the time. But I had not 
reckoned with my friends. My landlady was good- 
looking, of a tidy and affectionate nature, and had a 
little boy. The barristers at court began to laugh ; 
even the judge winked at me upon occasions when ask- 
ing after my health. Finally, some one saluted me in 
open court as Pickwick, and inquired after the health 
of Mrs. Bardell. " Bemember me to Mrs. B./ 3 said the 
wag, " and don't forget the little boy !" Whereupon 
the whole bar was convulsed with laughter, and I deter- 
mined to leave mv lodgings and seek others elsewhere. 

I was just as fortunate in my Dew location, 
besides being away from the smoke and noise of 
the city. Mrs. Hope Walworth, my new landlady, 
did everything possible to render my surroundings 
comfortable, and I in turn took great interest in the 
education and welfare of her two daughters. She 
also was a widow, who had lost her husband after a 
wedded life lasting less than three years, and she ever 
continued inconsolable. She never appeared to worry 
over trivialities, and has constantly carried herself, dur- 



HAROLD. 



21 



ing the nineteen years 1 have known her, as though a 
great weight lay at her heart ; which, indeed, it did 
without doubt, for I am quite sure she loved her hus- 
band extremely. 

As I have already said, before commencing to 
digress, Mrs. Walworth seemed much shocked at the 
news. She was afraid that I really intended to leave 
her, being dissatisfied, and that this excuse of mine 
served merely to delay and alleviate the announce- 
ment. I hastened, therefore, to inform her that I 
had resolved, no matter how long my absence might 
be protracted, to continue my usual monthly stipend 
of rent, and desired that she would see fit to have my 
lodgings temporarily occupied against my return. 
This was likewise in accordance with your lordship's 
suggestion. She was quite touched, and with much 
consideration refrained from questioning concerning 
the motives or destination of my journey. Her 
daughters, Maud and Constance, were outwardly 
much more affected, and came down to supper in 
tears. The other lodger, a Mr. Routledge, a musician 
of no mean ability, and who had resided there over 
seven years, was also much distressed to see me go. 
I told him I should be back before he had begun to 
miss the games of whist with which we were accus- 
tomed to regale ourselves on winter evenings with the 
ladies. He grasped my hand and warmly replied 
that he hoped 1 would. A gloom appeared to rest 
upon the entire household for the remainder of the 
evening. 

■ I then began to realize for the first time the con- 
sequence of the trust your lordship had imposed 



22 



HAKOLD. 



upon me. As a boy I had yearned to travel to dis- 
tant countries and see strange faces. I seized upon 
the law because my father intended me for the cloth, 
but I well knew that 1 was never intended by nature, 
either in temperament or capacity, for a barrister's 
life. During the twelve years 1 served your father, 
the late Lord Middleton at Dubersly, my affection for 
his person (and which 1 still cherish toward his memory) 
alone suppressed those longings — to which I was often 
subject — to quit England for a time and seek a 
change of scene and contingent adventure in foreign 
lands. Although I am now in my fifty-eighth year, 
I had never thoroughly extinguished this feeling of 
unrest and desire for danger. I was gifted at my 
birth, I am now quite confident, with a certain 
amount of bravery or intrepidity, as you may call it, 
which would have best exhibited itself in a military 
career. As it was, I had never been blessed or afflicted 
with a single opportunity to display either of these 
natural gifts. Whether my outward temper has been 
too placid and my disposition to anger so slight, I 
know not, but never in my whole life had I laid hands 
violently on a fellow-being. Neither bully, brawler, 
nor midnight assassin has ever crossed my path. Burg- 
lars and sneak thieves have avoided me and my envi- 
ronments as they would the plague. 2s~o runaway 
horse or mad dog had ever called into requisition 
those powers which had been latent within me during 
a whole lifetime. My existence, indeed, was a mono- 
tone, none the less so (I am conscious of apparent 
ingratitude in saying this) because I have been physi- 
cally comfortable and free to all avenues of harmless 



HAROLD. 



23 



pleasure and recreation. Millions might have envied 
my lot ; as for me, I only know I chafed internally as 
I saw the years slip by, one by one, and old age threat- 
ening to crown a life void of a single stirring passage. 

Judge, then, and blame me if I seized tenaciously 
upon this remarkable opportunity your lordship saw 
fit to place in my hands, and refused to permit emo- 
tion of any kind access to my breast. They knew me 
so well, that none endeavored to elicit information 
which they perceived I was averse to volunteer. 
Once or twice, while in bed, I considered strongly my 
original resolve to take no companion with me, and 
endeavored to invent and multiply dangers which the 
mission would entail, and to face which alone would 
not only be imprudent, but which might endanger 
the success of the enterprise. This latter considera- 
tion, however, was the only one I entertained for a 
moment. Even had I known of a young man I could 
trust to silence, I would not have robbed myself of a 
single iota of peril by any such encumbrance. 

I will pass over any further incidents of my departure, 
and come at once to my stepping aboard the merchant 
brig Queen Vic, off Southampton, on the 12th of Sep- 
tember. My luggage was light, everything I needed 
or fancied I should need being compactly arranged in a 
single valise. The sum of five hundred sovereigns in 
gold and bank-notes lay in a tin box at the bottom. 
The captain of the brig informed me that I would 
reach my island easily in five weeks, perhaps in four, 
with good winds and by skirting the coast. I carried 
the fine map you gave me constantly in the pocket 
of my greatcoat, except when I was engaged in study- 



24 



HAROLD. 



ing or exhibiting it to the crew, which, indeed, was 
not seldom. The captain of the brig had never seen 
so fine a map, and when I told him there was but one 
other Africa like it, and that in the possession of 
the Royal Geographical Society, he appeared highly 
interested. He related to me many anecdotes of his 
voyages, which formerly lay between Liverpool and 
Rio de Janeiro. He had only within the past six 
years been plying the trade of his company at African 
ports. The great difficulty, he explained, was in ob- 
taining a crew for such a voyage. 

" Sailors, as a rule," said he, " like to enjoy them- 
selves ashore, and vessels that stop at big cities, where 
a spree can be obtained, are most in demand. At Sierra 
Leone, after my first passage, the crew got mutinous, 
and swore they would never move the ship toward 
home ; but when they saw that the sailors of a Portu- 
guese and an English brig were ready to desert for my 
offer of double pay, they only swore they would never 
ship out from England again. " 

When we arrived at the- fortieth latitude it grew 
perceptibly warmer, and off Lisbon I discarded my 
greatcoat. I was fearful lest I should be disappointed 
of a storm at sea, about which I had heard much. 
But just as we had sighted the Madeira Islands a ter- 
rific gale arose, which took the brig many miles farther 
out to sea, but in a southerly direction, so our course 
I was but little delayed. The brig touched at the island 
of Teneriffe for water, and on September 28th con- 
tinued on to the Bissagos. The captain told me a story 
of his ship having been attacked and the crew nearly 
killed by natives. The Zulus, he observed, and, in 



HAROLD, 



25 



fact, all the blacks he had ever encountered, were the 
most ferocious in the world ; but that he had observed 
that they had one redeeming trait, that of being 
iC open to sense." All other savages, in his opinion, 
were simply madmen, without a single lucid interval. 
He had observed in all his dealings w T ith the blacks 
that they were readily excited to laughter, that they 
were not sullen, like the Malay, or treacherous, like the 
American savage. I asked him what he traded for 
his ivory, and he said gold. Barter was more profit- 
able, but there was much more risk attached to it, so 
the major profits passed through the hands of the 
English settlers of the country, who were well known 
as mediums of exchange by the natives of the far 
inland. 

On the 18th of October the Queen Vic stood in sight 
of one of the Bissagos, and at about three in the after- 
noon I bid the captain farewell, with the understanding 
that I was to undertake my return passage when the brig 
should touch at the same island — i.e., about the 15th of 
November, against which time I reckoned to have 
fulfilled my mission, with a week -to spare. Two of 
the crew rowed me in a small boat to the island, and 
summoning an interpreter among the handful of 
natives assembled on the beach, wished me good luck 
and left me. 

I observed that the island was long and narrow, the 
greater part covered with a thick shrub underbrush, 
the rest being sand. A few clumps of palms grew 
here and there, to relieve the effect of sameness both 
in color and in height of foliage. I experienced no 
difficulty in making my plans known to the natives, 



26 



HAROLD. 



whom I found were partially cirilized, but not so 
much so but that they were ready to backslide into 
barbarism upon slight provocation, as I have since 
witnessed. The fact of my landing upon Morai 
Island was, as your lordship is aware, the unwilling- 
ness of the captain of the brig to touch at any point 
on the mainland north of Freetown. The natives of 
the various coast islands long since found it to their 
interest to be friendly with the mariners, who in turn 
show no disposition to regard these in the light of au 
enemy. These were the first savages I had ever seen, 
and I gazed on them for several minutes with curiosity 
and astonishment. The utter absence of any wearing 
apparel on their part at first put me under a kind of 
restraint, which I with difficulty overcame. In fact, 
when one of their native women, in a state of utter 
jpuris naturalibus, offered to cook food for me, I 
evinced my repugnance to the entire proceeding in a 
fashion which to them must have been very apparent 
and insulting. After that they made all haste to get 
me into a small boat, formed from a couple of hollowed 
logs, and directed a youth of about sixteen years to 
paddle me to Kacundi. This settlement was on the 
adjacent opposite shore. I left with them a number 
of trinkets of small continental value, but for which 
they would gladly have given up the prize for which 
I sought. Mindful of your instructions, however, to 
procure an infant of two to three years, of a tribe 
flourishing upon the mainland, and if possible a little 
to the interior, I put the island of Morai behind me, 
and by the aid of the rude rudder steered as the black 
youth directed. 



HAROLD. 



27 



There was not a single human being on the beach 
when I landed from the boat. It was after sun- 
down, and for the first time since the commence- 
ment of the undertaking, I confess I stood aghast 
at my own temerity. That there were white set- 
tlers here I did not for a moment doubt, but witli 
the absence of law and civilization, their color would 
but enhance the difficulties of the situation. I there- 
fore made signs to the boy to proceed at once to the 
cabin of the whites and give them news of my arrival. 
It was quite dusk when he returned, but several rods 
distant I made out the figure of a man by his side. 
The man I knew at once to be a European, because 
I detected the flapping of an outer garment to the 
wind. He was bat slightly taller than the Morai 
youth and stooped considerably in his carriage. As 
he drew near I observed that he was of about my own 
age, his hair being white or nearly so. I had some 
doubt about his nationality, owing to the tanned con- 
dition of his skin, exposed as it was continually to the 
burning tropical sun ; but I was not left long in con- 
jecture upon this head, for after adjusting a pair of 
spectacles, which he took from his pocket, he uttered 
an ejaculation of astonishment as sincere as it was 
loud. I can now readily understand his amazement, 
which, in truth, did not occur to me at the time. The 
sight of a solitary Englishman landing on a barbarous 
coast, satchel in hand, and looking for all the world as 
if he had just stepped out of the train at Charing Cross 
Station — this being the simile Roderick Allen after- 
ward used — must indeed have been impressive. After 
staring at me for some moments, 



28 



HAROLD. 



" Who are you ?" he asked. 

" My name is John Holland, a barrister of Waver- 
ly Court, London, charged, with a mission to Af- 
rica." 

At these words my companion turned deadly pale, 
tottered visibly, and exclaimed : 

" My God !" and afterward, in a tone of more self- 
possession, " What folly !' 5 and then to me : 

" Have you a mission here ? Why do you land so 
far up the coast ? How did you land ? Are you not 
aware that this is a hostile settlement ?" 

He plied me with so many questions that I was fain 
to answer his last query first, which I did by observing 
that I was far from being aware that the tribe of 
Kacundi was hostile to the whites. On the contrary, 
I had been implicitly assured that it was most friendly, 
and that, furthermore, several English traders had 
settled in the locality. 

" I see you have not been informed of the present 
condition of affairs in this part of Senegambia. The 
whites were all massacred last spring, and none have 
since dared to show themselves or renew negotiations. 
AH the trading of the tribe is done with the Arabs, to 
the north." 

" How, then, do you survive ?" I exclaimed, in a 
tone of astonishment. 

My companion smiled and executed a deep, mean- 
ing gesture. 

" I am one of the chiefs of the Kacundi," he re- 
plied. I thought he uttered the words bitterly. 

u Why, then," said 1, " you must be Roderick 
Allen !" 



HAROLD. 



29 



The man started a 4 s if a bolt of lightning had smit- 
ten him. 

66 Do not be astonished at that," I made haste to 
say. " Perhaps you recall Mr. Inigo Bright, a young 
Englishman who travelled through this country three 
years ago. If you are Roderick Allen, I have a mes- 
sage from him to you and also a small package, which 
he bade me deliver to you in case you were still 
alive. " 

At the mention of Mr. Bright your lordship would 
have been surprised to see the change of an opposite 
character which came over Roderick Allen. His face 
lit up with the sense of recollection, and he came for- 
ward and held out his hand. He bade the negro boy 
begone to his island with the boat. I observed he 
spoke to the youth in the latter' s native tongue, a suc- 
cession of unpleasant, guttural tones, anything but 
musical to the ear of a European. He then turned to 
me and bade me accompany him, at the same time 
assisting me with the valise. We reached a series of 
thatched mud huts after eight minutes' moderate 
walking, during which I meditated upon my pros- 
pects and surroundings. As for my companion, he 
never offered to sound a syllable. Choosing the most 
pretentious cabin of the group, Roderick Allen made 
directly for it, bidding me remain outside for an in- 
stant until he should return. I was directly under a 
row of palm-trees when he left me. 

I could readily distinguish noises and the light of a 
torch proceeding from the cabin, which was large in 
comparison and capable of holding, 1 should think, 
ten persons. I looked at my watch — it was twenty 



30 



HAROLD. 



minutes to eight — and sat down upon my satchel, 
which I placed on end for the purpose. 

There has never been a moment in my life when I 
felt more thoroughly composed and less the spirit of 
fear. The night was very warm, but there was a fine 
sea breeze, and I have never seen so grand a moon. I 
adjudged the body of the natives to be asleep, so quiet 
and reposeful everything was. 'Twas exactly twenty 
minutes before Roderick Allen returned, yet I had 
not evinced the slightest impatience. 

Indeed, in this singular emergency I experienced a 
certain exaltation of spirit which I had never before 
known. It seemed as if I had been injected into 
another age and atmosphere, as well as another clime. 
If a horde of blood-thirsty savages had suddenly 
emerged and come upon me, 1 doubt if I should have 
been betrayed into a single expression of sinister 
emotion. 

Tour lordship will pardon me for saying that, 
whenever it please God to remove me from this earth, 
I may meet the blow with similar fortitude of mind 
to the one I have now feebly attempted to describe. 

"When Roderick Allen came to seek me, he was 
accompanied by six or eight of the most ferocious- 
looking human beings I had ever set eyes on. I had 
seen savages upon exhibition at the Crystal Palace 
some years ago, but they must have been transported 
from some less barbarous tribe, or were partially 
civilized themselves. The horrible, sensual mouths 
of these people, with their huge, projecting teeth, 
especially struck me as revolting. I was so much 
occupied with my own thoughts that I had not ob- 



HAROLD. 31 

served them until they had drawn quite near. They 
gesticulated quite violently for several moments, but 
when they had observed me and heard my voice, they 
quieted down and seemed not ill pleased at my visit. 

Roderick Allen then informed me that I should 
spend the night at his cabin and might acquaint him of 
my project in the morning. To this I readily agreed, 
and, the blacks having left us, we made our way to 
another dwelling, where several women were awaiting 
my companion's return. These, he told me, were his 
wives, two of whom, acting under his orders, imme- 
diately busied themselves in warming over the flesh of 
some animal for our supper, from which he had been 
hastily summoned by my boatman from Morai. We 
talked little at our meal, during which the negresses, 
with one exception, absented themselves from the 
cabin proper and sought repose for the night. Upon 
its conclusion Roderick Allen showed me my bunk of 
palm leaves, and asked me if I were ready to retire. 
Upon my assenting, he immediately extinguished the 
two torches and, throwing himself down on a similar 
pallet, made as if to sleep. His heavy, regular breath- 
ing for a time did not deceive me in believing him 
actually in slumber, for I myself practised the same de- 
ception for upward of an hour, in order to assure him, 
when I fell into a state of drowsiness and slept till 
morning. 

Roderick Allen did not once close his eyes. After 
becoming acquainted with his history f did not much 
wonder at that. 

At daybreak I found him up, and I then proceeded 
to lay before him the nature of my mission and deliver 



32 



HAROLD. 



the small parcel of books which Mr. Bright had in- 
trusted me with. He was silent during the whole of 
my talk, but when I was quite through he observed 
that it would be fatally impossible to secure so much 
as a lock of wool from the head of any male infant of 
the Kacundi tribe. There were, however, tribes to 
the north and east whose skin was blacker and who 
had never, to his knowledge, come in contact with a 
white man. Their types were purer, but they were 
not cannibals, like the natives of the coast. With 
them I would find no such obstacle thrown in my 
path, for if I marked my plans well I could secure 
any male infant I chose, with the chief's connivance. 

" What do you mean by working my plans well ?" 
I asked. 

"I suppose you come well supplied with knick- 
knacks for barter ?" he said. 

I told him I had plenty of English currency, and 
he informed me I could exchange it for beads and 
rings with the Kacundi. He seemed highly pleased 
with the present of the books, but took occasion to 
say : " When your young English traveller was here, 
he was the first intelligent white man I had seen in 
years. I loved to talk with him, and the desire to 
read came upon me strongly. But," he added, pass- 
ing his hand through his white hair, " I have changed 
much even during five years. My hold on Europe 
grows less strong, and I often think I shall die a bar- 
barian. If it^were not for my habit of talking much 
to myself, I even fancy I should long ago have relin- 
quished my language and yours !" 



CHAPTEE VI. 



" Harold was he hight ; but whence his name 
And lineage long, it suits me not to say." 

— Bteon. 

Realizing that I bad now plenty of time to spare, I 
remained a fall week with Roderick Allen and the 
Kacundi tribe before setting out with an interpreter 
for the north. 

I refrain from any further enlargement of the life 
and surroundings of these people, fearing that in the 
light of recent matter which has appeared in print, 
your lordship will find the narrative tedious. 

On October 29th we set out on the journey of 
eighty miles northward. Waki-waki was the curious 
name of the rather intelligent black who accompanied 
me. Waki-waki was the body-servant of the white 
chieftain, and had picked up, somehow, just enough 
English for me to convey to him my simpler ideas and 
desires. The route was partially on the sea-coast and 
partially through a tract of semi-desert country. 
We bore a rude pannier full of those articles which the 
tribes we had just left had only been too glad to ex- 
change for the glittering sovereigns of the white man. 

My advent into the settlement of the Mabri created 
the most intense excitement. Naked savages ran 
hither and thither to apprise their friends, at the same 
time swinging their immense spears and creating a 



34 



HAROLD. 



perfect pandemonium of yells. It seemed as if a 
sable Bedlam had broken loose. 

Notwithstanding these alarming demonstrations, the 
chief received me cordially. I think he may have 
been impelled toward this demeanor after seeing what 
I carried. On the other hand, he was the only man 
in the tribe, I afterward learned, who had ever laid 
eyes on a white skin. 

I stood in the centre of a sort of rude public square, 
shortly after my arrival, while the chief sent his 
negroes to prepare a hut for my accommodation. All 
about me the nude savages crowded, but never so close 
as to touch my person, about which they appeared to 
entertain a kind of superstition. The women were 
especially attracted by curiosity at my clothing, whose 
purpose, no doubt, occasioned as much speculation as 
the color of such portions of my body as were visible. 
I had especially cautioned Waki-waki under no cir- 
cumstances to relate or allude to, in any way, the 
object of my visit before any but the chief of the tribe 
himself. 

While, after glancing at the countenance of Magu- 
zala, upon which greed, covetousness, and weakness of 
character were too strongly impressed not to be ap- 
parent, I had no doubt of prevailing with him, at the 
same time I desired to have a private conference, with 
? the aid of Waki-waki, and primarily make sure of my 
ground. When, therefore, the sovereign of the Mabri 
announced that my hut was ready, I determined to 
wait until morning before I broached the subject at all. 

Early the next day, after feasting liberally upon 
pineapples and dried rhinoceros flesh, I waited upon 



HAROLD. 



35 



his majesty, Maguzala, and then and there indulged 
in a conversation such as the primitive form of our 
mutual expression would permit of. 

Now, almost the first thing this chief observed was, 
whether I wanted slaves and whether I would not 
accept a half dozen off-hand from him. 1 was not 
prepared for this opportunity, but quickly saw that it 
would be wise to immediately avail myself of it. 
Ignoring, then, my previous resolution, I made bold 
to state at once my quest. 

I wanted a healthy male infant, perfectly Mack 
and sound and natural in every "physical particular, 
to be not above two or two and a half years, that 
being the period when the least risk would attach to 
his removal. 

Maguzala listened with an animated countenance, 
and at the end expressed his perfect ability to comply 
with every detail of my request. 

He seemed glad to think he had got off so 
easily, and when I called Waki-waki and displayed 
the treasures of the rude basket, he was overjoyed, 
and grinned and gesticulated incessantly. Upon my 
part, the interview concluded, I returned to my hut, 
and composed myself with a couple of fans, with the 
understanding that all would be satisfactorily arranged 
during the afternoon. 

After the great heat of the meridian had subsided, 
therefore, I sauntered out with Waki-waki and two 
servants, provided by the chief, Maguzala, for my es- 
cort, to select an infant such as 1 desired. It never 
once entered my head that I was committing anything 
which was not in the highest degree laudable, in res- 



36 



HAROLD. 



cuing a soul from among these wretched savages to a 
place in the lap of European civilization. That the 
relatives of such a child would experience the slightest 
twinge of sorrow or regret at such a proceeding I had 
good reason to emphatically doubt, from the readiness 
with which their chief acceded to my proposition. 
Many of these savages had a dozen children, and I 
deemed would be glad to part with one of them for 
treasures far dearer to their hearts. 

During my walk, in which I was attended by the 
king's servants, bearing palm leaves over my head, an 
incident occurred which I must not forbear to men- 
tion. I have already observed that the women of the 
tribe were most keenly alive to my presence ; now, 
much to the mortification and chagrin of the male 
negroes, who, standing off at a little distance, con- 
templated me with ill-concealed distrust. These 
n egresses were entirely nude and remarkably well 
formed. Their swelling hips and polished black skins 
reminded me of certain paintings which his late lord- 
ship had imported from Morocco, the work of a 
Frenchman resident in that country. The women 
followed me about with lecherous glances, and finally 
one of them, either stumbling or through design, 
caught hold of my upper garment. The instant she 
did so, her companions set up a hideous cry, which 
was caught up by the whole camp. Scores of blacks, 
who, knowing my intimacy with Maguzala, had per- 
mitted their wives to follow me, with no other emotion 
than that of curiosity, now came running in my direc- 
tion, with their spears poised, and uttering the most 
fearful yells. 



HAROLD. 



37 



I really believed my last hour had come. 

The tumult was interrupted at this juncture by 
Maguzala himself, who at once divined the cause, and 
bade his warriors disperse. The incident, however, 
made a great impression upon my mind, and convinced 
me that I was unpopular and that my best course was 
to hurry, at any odds, the moment of my return. 
Were the reason of my presence known, it might in- 
deed go hard with me. 

Accordingly, I repaired to the chief's hut at dusk, 
where several black women and Maguzala himself were 
awaiting my arrival. A row of sturdy black infants 
lay upon the floor of the royal cabin. Maguzala in- 
formed me that these were the mothers of the children 
I saw, and that I might choose one to my liking and 
depart the next morning. The women were a crafty, 
shame-faced lot, I thought, and by no means so young 
and comely as those w T ho had dogged my footsteps 
during the afternoon. 

I quickly made a choice. One of the infants was 
so incomparably superior to the other five, that I 
ordered an immediate examination of his person. His 
skin was of the color of ebony, his teeth perfectly 
white and even, and his hair of that glossy texture, 
common, I believe, to certain tribes. His nose was 
not so flat as that of the adult negro, in this respect 
resembling, however, Maguzala himself, as well as in 
the thinness of his lips. 

But here I am assured that almost all the facial 
characteristics of the negro are developed during the 
period of adolescence by the bestiality of his conduct, 
for all the countenances of Mabri children I had seen 



38 



HAROLD. 



of from two to ten years were far from being coarse. 
The thickness of the lips invariably accentuates the 
flatness of the nasal organ, I am told. 

I signified at once to the chief my disposition to 
bind the bargain at once, to which Maguzala cheer- 
fully agreed. 

What was my amazement to see in the putative par- 
ent of the infant I had chosen a wizened old woman, 
with dried- up breasts and a shock of gray, grizzly 
wool, which completely covered her ears and otherwise 
overspread her countenance. I could scarce refrain 
from uttering the exclamation which was on my lips, 
to think that such a perfect offspring could descend 
from such a mother. 

1 cut short my feelings of surprise, however, in the 
thought that I was doubly fortunate, for the old hag's 
eyes sparkled at the paltry beads and earrings which I 
handed her (at the direction of Maguzala, who, cun- 
ning rogue, retained about four fifths of the treasure 
for himself), and seemingly was glad to get rid of her 
brat upon such terms. The child was forthwith cared 
for in the royal hut, against my departure in the morn- 
ing, when the chief had promised me an escort for a 
third of my journey back to the coast. 

The same evening I retired to my own habitation 
with Waki-waki, and, having partaken of a bountiful 
meal sent from the royal kitchen, extinguished the 
torch and closed my eyes in slumber. 

The hut in which 1 slept was a rudely thatched 
structure of clay and bark, having a single entrance, 
which was invariably guarded by a stack of rushes 
and plant stalks, and behind these Waki-waki, the 



HAROLD. 



39 



interpreter, slept. It is the custom of the Mabri and 
all neighboring tribes to retire immediately after dusk 
and sleep till daybreak. Of midnight theft, assassina- 
tion, and warfare they knew nothing. In time of 
war darkness is a sign for the cessation of hostilities, 
and the man who attempted to revenge himself upon 
his enemy under cover of night would be held up to 
the execration and barbarism of the whole tribe. The 
Mabri is not what would be called a hospitable nation, 
but the stranger need have no fear of nocturnal 
treachery, of all treachery instinctively the most base. 
With this I explain to your lordship why I slept in 
utter security and apprehended no danger. 

I could not recall what my dreams were when I 
awoke, but I was sure they were of a thoroughly peace- 
ful nature. It was still almost pitch dark. I arose on 
my elbow and tried to peer about, speculating the 
while upon the causes of my awakening. These I felt 
would not be easy of discovery, and I was on the point 
of again dropping back on my primitive pillow, when 
a slight noise, proceeding from the door of the hut, 
roused me at once. 

Without making the slightest movement which could 
be heard, I sat up and waited patiently for the cause. 
Waki-waki's heavy breathing convinced me that he 
was fast asleep, and the noise I had heard was that of 
a soft tread, together with a slight metallic tinkle, 
which I knew he could not possibly have made. 1 
was convinced that this was what had awakened me. 
Meantime, it rapidly grew light, but not enough for 
me to distinguish an object in a distant corner of the 
hut. 



40 



HAROLD. 



Without waiting any longer, therefore, for develop- 
ments, I immediately sprang up, and grasping the 
torch which lay on the ground near me (and which I 
had no means of relighting), sallied to the door of the 
hut and peered out. I could see objects plainer there, 
but not a living thing was in sight. Conceiving the 
idea of some animal, tame or otherwise, ensconced in 
the hut, I returned immediately, and began to lay the 
end of the torch about me, in the hopes of striking 
something. 

Unsuccessful in this, 1 made as if to return to my 
couch, when, to my utter horror and amazement, I 
found it, or rather felt it already occupied. That it 
was a human being I knew full well ; there could be 
no mistaking the touch of his or her skin. 

Of a sudden it flashed upon me that this was a wom- 
an, in all probability one of the women who had follow- 
ed me the previous day. 

Although an exceedingly modest man, and much 
alive to feelings of delicacy, the presence of this amor- 
ous black woman inspired me only with a feeling of 
anger, not unmingled with disgust. Her motives I 
could readily divine, and I lost no time in deciding 
the course I should pursue. I was on the point of 
arousing Waki-waki, when a terrible shriek rent the air, 
and Waki-waki himself sprang up near the entrance, 
only to find himself felled to earth again by a hand 
much more powerful than his own. In the struggle 
that ensued I became conscious of the figure of a 
woman dashing past me oat into the open air, where 
it was now quite light. Realizing what this turmoil 
might cost me, I took advantage of the moment when 



HAROLD. 



41 



the tussle between the two negroes was the fiercest to 
make good my exit, which I did as fast as my legs 
would carry me, in the direction of the royal hut. 

Simultaneously the whole settlement was in an up- 
roar. 

I divined during my flight the connection between 
the negresswho had invaded my hut and the man who 
had followed her and assailed my faithful Kacundi. 
The chief had just arisen when I entered. " What," 
thought I, u am I to do without an interpreter V' y I 
therefore signified to the astonished Maguzala my dis- 
tress as best I could, and implored his protection. 
Whether he had future commercial transactions of a 
similar nature or the fear of the presently hostile 
Kacundi before his eyes I shall never know, but, at 
all events, he determined not to sacrifice me. He 
was not left long in doubt as to the real nature of the 
danger which threatened me. I was the first white 
man ever to set foot upon that soil, and the blacks 
evidently regarded me as an evil spirit, whom they had 
sworn to slaughter. If their awe for their chief's 
person was not very great, there had not now been 
the slightest chance that I should have survived to 
tell this tale. These shrieking, foaming savages sur- 
rounded the dwelling and began a blood-curdling war- 
dance, tossing their lances in mid-air and constantly 
being augmented from distant parts of the settlement, 
until several hundred w T ere gathered together. Magu- 
zala coolly donned his great war plume, and, grasping 
a monstrous spear in his right hand, went to the door 
of the hut, attended by two of his servants. The 
multitude of savages then only increased their yelling 



42 



HAROLD, 



until lie waved to them to be silent. Maguzala then 
loudly uttered a few guttural sounds, of no import to 
me, and a great body of blacks came over and stood 
by his side. Maguzala then addressed them again, 
and immediately there were more horrid cries. One 
savage, more obstreperous than the rest, shook his 
lance in the king's face. The whole tribe started, and 
I could see, even under his black skin, Maguzala's 
face grow paler. The words he uttered were horrible 
in their fierceness and blood-curdling in their conse- 
quence. 

The wretched man's head was immediately severed 
from his shoulders, and a stream of hot blood gushed 
up into the air. 

It was the most sickening sight 1 ever saw or that 
can possibly be imagined. My heart for a moment 
actually ceased to beat. Every savage face grew livid 
with terror. 

In the midst of this silence I heard the voice of 
Waki-waki, and presently my faithful negro was borne 
into Maguzala's presence with a great wound, made by 
a spear, in his left arm. The chief of the tribe ordered 
him to be freed, and Waki-waki then told how he had 
been awakened and wounded, after which he explained 
to me by gestures, positively indecent, the charges 
against me. By thumping himself violently on the 
throat with his clenched fist, he demonstrated the 
punishment the tribe demanded for myself and the 
woman. 

Shocked almost beyond expression, I indignantly 
denied the charges, and demanded of Maguzala per- 
mission to leave the country without further delay. 



HAROLD, 



43 



At this, as if divining my words, the cries were re- 
newed with even increased vigor, and the same mo- 
tions and gesticulations were repeated. It was in 
vain that the more violent were threatened with in- 
stant death ; a seeming majority demanded my blood 
as revenge for betraying a woman of their tribe, and 
pretended to repel my denial. 

The scenes that followed I will not shock your 
lordship by attempting to describe. I remained bar- 
ricaded in the royal hut while Maguzala asserted his 
authority over the insurgents by knife and lance. I 
have no doubt that the loyal savages easily carried the 
day. But when the noise of the conflict had moved 
away to some distance from the royal hut, Maguzala 
sent back a dozen of his men with the message, deliv- 
ered by signs, that I must flee. Hastily, therefore, 
calling to one of the women who had remained in the 
adjoining hut (the two connecting by a single en- 
trance), I bid them bring the black child with them, 
which they did. Five of the band only were to 
accompany Waki-waki and myself, and that for the 
first day only ; and these, with the assistance of the 
women, got together enough provisions to last us on 
our three days' journey ; after which, with the noise 
of the fighting still in our ears, we were soon on the 
march southward. That was on Monday, the 3d of 
November. Tuesday morning I and my escort 
parted. Waki-waki's wound had been a severe one, 
but he had it bandaged, and did not seem to mind it 
much. 

The black child was under my especial care, each 
of us taking turns at carrying it, and I concerning 



HAROLD. 



myself that lie should not lack for food or drink or 
become ill during the journey. On the afternoon of 
the same day "Waki-waki suddenly stopped, and with a 
look of intense sagacity motioned to me that we were 
followed. 

I counselled against it, but he persisted in leav- 
ing me for a few moments, just as we had passed 
over a slight knoll upon which several palm-trees 
grew, and retracing his steps back over this slight 
eminence. 

I heard him give a slight cry an instant later, and 
would have gone back to inquire the cause but for 
my young charge, whom I determined to guard 
religiously. 

It was fully five minutes before he returned, and 
rendered me the astounding information that two 
young women were following us. Furthermore, 
that these two were sisters, and, to Waki-waki's 
eyes, beautiful ; that one of them was the mother 
of the black child 1 was carrying off and the other 
the female who had in such an extraordinary man- 
ner esteemed me her lover ! To say that 1 was 
staggered by this intelligence would be to express 
myself in very mild terms. I did not know for an 
instant what course to pursue. I inquired of "Waki- 
waki what should best be done under the circum- 
stances. My companion replied that if the younger 
of the two women went back to her tribe, her husband 
would murder her in the most shocking manner. The 
other wanted her offspring returned to her, but dared 
not demand it of me and incur the enmity of Magu- 
zala. Waki-waki described to me her rage and de- 



HAROLD. 



45 



spair at the royal theft of her child, and suggested 
that the only way to rid ourselves of the dilemma 
was to kill both women ; otherwise she would either 
set upon me and tear my eyes out (he pointing to his 
disabled arm), in the effort to regain her infant, or, 
what was worse still, would stir up enmity against me 
among the Kacundi. 

To this horrible proposition I revolted with energy, 
and was beginning to think of some way out of the 
difficulty, when Waki-waki gave a sudden cry of 
warning, and I sprang up with the infant just in 
the nick of time. The bushes at our side had parted, 
and a tall, agile negress made at me desperately. She 
was too apparently in just the condition my black 
man had described — rendered half mad with grief and 
hatred. 

I had just evaded her first onslaught, when another 
black figure, which I readily recognized, appeared in 
hot pursuit of the other. 

Before either of us could interfere she had sprung 
like a tiger at the throat of her sister and bore her to 
earth. 

The battle was short and fierce, and the result might 
have been doubtful had not Waki-waki attempted to 
interfere, whereupon the younger darted upon a knife 
which hung in his belt, and wielded it with quick and 
awful cunning. 

In another second her sister, both born of the same 
mother, lay dead at her feet. 

During the short struggle the breasts of both women 
had heaved, their lips had reddened, their whole forms 
had assumed that terrible feminine grandeur which is 



46 



HAROLD. 



common to woman inspired with fierce emotion in every 
clime. Rooted to the spot as I was out of infinite hor- 
ror, I could not resist the feeling of admiration which 
I felt stealing over me, at the sight of this battle of real 
Amazons. Amazons, I may remark, both were, but 
both were impelled by the heart and the affections. 
The one sought to protect me from worse than a 
tiger's rage, that of a mother wronged, and the other to 
rescue her child and wreak vengeance on its abductor. 

When the younger woman saw what she had done, 
she threw away the bloody weapon, and before I 
could prevent ran and hung weeping about my neck. 
I will pass over my thoughts at the moment. Who 
can explain the universal mystery of the human heart 
— the inscrutable passion of one soul for another, 
although debased and dense in its knowledge of 
humanity ? 

# •* # ■* * 

Let me also pass over our return to the country of 
the Kacundi. 1 could not leave this woman to the 
rude mercy of her enemies. Indeed, I could not, 
even if I had wished. I saw, besides, that I had 
overlooked the difficulty of attending a two-year in- 
fant on an ocean voyage alone, that a nurse was in- 
dispensable. In short, I conquered my aversion, and 
the black woman accompanied me aboard ship, which, 
I should state, was the Bellaire, the Queen Vic hav- 
ing been detained in an unforeseen manner, after leav- 
ing Cape Town, by the disabling of her rudder during 
a gale. The captain had been kind enough to signal 
the Bellaire to stop at the Bissagos, whither I boarded 
her, and took leave of my friend, Roderick Allen. 



HAROLD. 



47 



But I was not yet destined to be free from all 
anxiety about the success of my expedition. 

On the fifth day of our voyage the black child was 
taken violently ill. I was in despair, and paid not the 
slightest attention to the curiosity and amazement of 
the crew, but walked about the decks all day long in 
the extremest agitation. Knowing that I wished it, 
the black girl (she could not have been more than 
eighteen or nineteen) attended the child unceasingly, 
day and night. 

I never discovered the cause of his complaint, for 
on the eighth day he died, and I was thrown into 
utter despair. 

I was not long to remain in this condition, however, 
for the captain, to whom I had confided the manner 
in which I had been undone, observed : 

' " Is that all? Is a little nigger all you want? 
Well, I think we shall have one hefore the month is 
out." 

The captain eventually proved right. He had ob- 
served what I should never have thought to notice. 
The negress, whom I had named Chloe, was enceinte. 
But whether the child would be a male or female 
subjected me to so much agony of suspense that I will 
pass over it in haste. My faith in Providence told 
me that it would be a boy, and I at length left it in 
His hands. The great load was shortly, as you know, 
lifted off my mind. 

The voyage was short and propitious, and after one 
hundred and forty-two days' absence from England, 
I landed with my extraordinary mission fulfilled, by 
the grace of Providence, even more than to the letter. 



CHAPTER VII. 



JDem. Soft ; who comes here ? 

Enter a Nurse, with a black-a-moor child in her arms. 

— Titus Andronicus. 

The country-seat of Lord Middleton, at Capen- 
hurst, comprised rather more than five hundred acres 
of mere and woodland. 

In former times it had been situate in the hamlet of 
Dubersly, which since the epoch of reform had diffused 
and finally centred itself two miles to the south in the 
borough of Capenhurst. The mansion itself was of 
brick and red sandstone, turreted and gabled in the 
goodly style of our great-great-grandfathers. 

The only time Dubersly was occupied was during the 
summer season, when its sides were half covered over 
with striped Venetian awnings, which not only har- 
monized well with the landscape, but lent the mansion 
at times a decidedly modern appearance. Its in- 
terior was less modern and more picturesque. The 
furniture had all come down recently from his pres- 
ent lordship's London house, where Lady May Dubersly 
concluded it was no longer in vogue — too heavy and of 
too stately a pattern to be cheerful in the sight of the 
invalid. In at least two of the apartments at Dubersly 
the ancestral portraits of the family stared, grim and 
speechless, from their frames. They were a good- 
natured and jolly, if a thoroughly conservative lot — 



HAROLD. 



49 



Lord Middleton's ancestors — if one might judge from 
these portraits. . 

Dubersly House was built in 1713 ; a medallion of 
the great duke was imbedded in one of the marble 
panels over the portico, with a date below it, " May 
12, 1713"— the day of the signing of the Utrecht 
Peace. On that day, too, the house was finished, and 
Duberslys had come and gone since then ; branches of 
the family had been given marquisates and even 
earldoms, but the descendants of the Dubersly — 
he who was Grand High Equerry to the Conqueror 
—never aspired to anything above their estate, 
which might be supposed, as one of the most ancient 
families in the kingdom, had always been highly 
honorable. 

Henry Charles, Lord Middleton, was the first mar- 
quis in the direct line. 

A whole year had elapsed since Inigo Bright and 
his friend gossiped on the wide lawn. It was now a 
clear, open day in early June. Andrew, the Scotch 
gardener, was industriously working a scythe upon 
the aspiring sheaves of early summer grass. Mrs. 
Jennet, the housekeeper, had set three or four cages 
of canaries out to bask in the warm sunshine. The 
mansion was undergoing the usual annual cleaning 
and renovation. Kingsley, one of the big footmen in 
Caermarthen Square, had arrived a couple of days 
previously to assist the housekeeper in putting every, 
thing at Dubersly to rights, in view of its approach- 
ing summer occupancy. At present this worthy was 
engaged in fanning his reclining person within one of 
the antique bay-windows. 



50 



HAKOLD. 



" Hit's a damn houtrage," lie soliloquized, with 
much less energy of manner than his statement seems 
to call for. " What's a damn outrage, Kingsley ?" 
(It was Kingsley' s characteristic to soliloquize thus.) 
u Wy, to arsk a gentleman to trapse hup an' down 
arfter a' old 'ag, honly because the gentleman spoke 
of 'appens to be hofficiating as footman in a 'igh 
fam'ly. Just to think, a-washink windows, an' a- 
cleanink furniture— in the country P ' 

The personage officiating as footman in a high 
family laid especial stress upon the rustic situation 
of the aforementioned employments. It appeared 
as if the washing of windows and the cleansing of 
furniture was humiliating under any circumstances ; 
to be obliged to perform these functions in the 
country was adding to their natural indignity and 
degradation. 

" The very hidea of respectable people a-leavink 
Lunnon an' Brighton an 5 Parry to hexist 'ere is more 
than 1 can conjecture. Two miles for a drop o' gin, 
and then honly 'alf a public as is a public. Now, my 
advice is — 'Ullo — I say, wot are you a-doink 'ere, 
my man ?" 

A pale little boy in a green coat stood staring pleas- 
antly at Mr. Kingsley. During the first part of that 
footman's chaste monologue the pale little boy had 
been making his way from the entrance to Dubersly, 
along the path which traversed the front lawn, wholly 
unobserved. 

" Well, ragamuffin, speak hup," pursued Kingsley, 
in a lordly yet tolerant way. " Wot's yer message ? 
Wot 'ave yer got, my fire feller ? The butcher is to 



HAROLD. 



51 



send hover a pound of meat or p'raps the village 
tinker presents 'is compliments — hey ? Come, 'and it 
hover to me." 

The ragamuffin's expression grew to one of intense 
amusement. 

66 To you ?" he returned, slowly, and with edifying 
sarcasm. " O — oh ! P'raps we don't know who we 
is ? No ; p'raps not. Witechapel fer a farden's 
wort'. Does your mistress 'appen to be hengaged or 
does she 'appen to be wery busy ? Say !" 

Mr. Kingsley started up with that ominous frown 
which, when worn by footmen, is fatal to small boys 
— i.e., plebeian small boys. 

" Keep off, ol' feller, no larks," continued the 
youthful messenger in green. " I'm a-droppink in fer 
a friendly wisit on Mrs. J. Jennet, your wery indul- 
gent mistress — hi ! — help ! lemme go !" 

This last piece of insolence was more than Mr. 
Kingsley could stand. With agility unusual for him 
he sprang and caught the offender by the coat- collar. 
It was about to go hard with the youth when the 
housekeeper herself appeared. At which the pale 
boy in green immediately announced himself in his 
capacity of errand-boy, lately established at Pope's 
Inn, and present messenger from the residence of Mr. 
John Holland, barrister, whither his lordship and 
Inigo Bright had repaired the previous evening. The 
letter he bore was formally delivered into the hands 
of the housekeeper, and by her read as follows : 

Pope's Inn, 5 o'clock p.m., Jane the 5th. 

My dear Mrs. Jennet : Lord Middleton has in- 
structed me to tell you that, although he has decided 



52 



HAROLD. 



not to occupy Dubersly House this summer, the same 
must be ready for immediate occupancy. Mr. Inigo 
Bright will be down by an early coach to-morrow, 
and the new occupants of Dubersly House will follow 
on Thursday — if nothing prevents. Kingsley is in- 
structed to remain for some two weeks longer or until 
his lordship notifies him. His lordship believes he 
can trust you to attend to every detail attending the 
approaching occupancy in a faithful and conscientious 
manner. 

Believe me, my dear Jennet, 

Your friend, 

John Holland, 



CHAPTER VIII. 



" We often hear of hereditary talents, hereditary vices, aDd 
hereditary virtues, but whoever will critically examine the evi- 
dence will find that we have no proof of their existence." — 
Buckle, History of Civilization. 

The appointed Thursday came and went and many 
others along with it. So quietly had the secret been 
kept that none of the villagers of Capenhurst knew 
of the arrival of the strange little personage who was 
to be thenceforth for many years master of Dubersly 
House. 

That little personage was now six months old. 
Precisely that period before the little black boy had 
been ushered into the world at the sign of the Blue 
Dragon, at Portsmouth, to relieve the mind of the 
intrepid solicitor and fullil the captain's predictions. 
Both Inigo Bright and Lord Middleton had posted 
down from London on purpose to be present. Such 
an array of medical talent had in all human proba- 
bility never attended a single birth in the town before 
as might have been seen there that morning. No 
prince of the blood royal, it is certain, could have re- 
ceived more attention than was accorded the offspring 
of the negress Chloe. It was a simple affair to her, 
being young and vigorous, and there is every reason 
to believe her untutored intellect marvelled much at 
the unwonted ceremony. 



54 



HAROLD. 



When it was all over, the three parties most inter- 
ested in the success of this most important factor in 
their experiment repaired to a private apartment 
which the landlord of the establishment placed at their 
disposal, and drank the health of John Holland, the 
doctors, the new-born infant, and various other persons 
and things which seemed momentarily plausible. The 
next step was to provide suitable temporary quarters 
for the mother and child until the latter's physical 
prosperity became assured, which was accordingly 
done by the indefatigable old lawyer. Everybody 
connected w T ith the transaction of the morning was 
pledged to secrecy for obvious reasons. The barrister 
committed his narrative to paper, and, being duly read 
and approved, was treasured among the archives of the 
Experiment. It is almost needless to say that that 
portion of the narrative relating to Chloe had a 
remarkable fascination for Bright. 

It will have been observed that in his account the 
garrulous old lawyer has most rigorously excluded 
everything which treats of the strange and unfortunate 
passion bred and subsequently continued by the 
negress for his person. The reproachful melancholy 
and fits of weeping which marked her existence aboard 
the Bellaire were temporarily interrupted by the 
birth of her babe. Indeed, from the first she con- 
ceived a violent antipathy to her own offspring, and 
had to be watched carefully in order that she might 
not take it into her head to do the child some injury. 

Her strange, one-sided love for the solicitor soon 
reasserted itself. From that time forward until the 
day of her death she continued to pine away in almost 



HAROLD. 



55 



intermittent silence. The poor woman obstinately 
refused to learn a word of the civilized tongue and 
happily for her — her new refuge being situate in the 
suburbs — failed to create the consternation which her 
moods and appearance at times would certainly evoke 
from the inhabitants of a more populous neighbor- 
hood. 

Ohloe died in early summer, shortly after her babe 
was weaned. She was buried in a country churchyard 
near Cowes, and over her grave was set a stone. It 
may be seen at this day, bearing these words : 

1NTGRA SED PULCHRA 
IIS" UTILITATE ; 
IKVITA MIKERVA, 
AUXILIATRIX SAPIEKTI^E. 

Bequiescat in Pace. 

Her death naturally effected the immediate removal 
of Harold (as the child was christened, shortly before 
leaving Portsmouth) to Dubersly House, the young 
lord having decided to take the oft-proffeffed advice 
of his physicians and remain abroad. Perhaps he 
would never again occupy Dubersly. If he needed a 
rural existence in England, he used to say in a jok- 
ing way, he would go to Scotland. He could get 
a more congenial estate over the Border at a bargain. 
But just now the country and country people bored 
him and made his physical infirmities seem greater 
than they really were. He differed from most in- 
valids in that urban atmosphere acted as a sort of 
tonic upon his temperament, and London and Paris 
in the height of the season, San Carlos, Aix-les-Bains 3 



56 



HAROLD. 



and Carlsbad, with their crowds of fashion and their 
excitement, always had a soothing smile for him. 
During those periods when he made rustic concessions 
to his medical men, his tenants, and to his sister, 
whose house parties were becoming rapidly popular, 
Lord Henry suffered frightful ennui. It may have 
been noticed that the young lord was a peculiar 
product. Fashionable wits said that Henry Dubersly 
would have been a great man if he had not been cut 
out for a great invalid. For the rest, it is enough 
to say of hirn that without his co-operation, however 
whimsical, the remarkable experiment of Mr. Inigo 
Bright, herewith under record, might never have been 
undertaken. 

As for Lady May, his lordship's sister, it was gen- 
erally agreed that she was a very charming young 
person, whose devotion to her brother was famous far 
and wide. Her great friend at Paris, indeed, her old 
school friend (afterward the famous Madame de 
Salecy), had told her that she was an ingenue, which 
was, by the by, a great compliment, coming from the 
Frenchwoman. 

It was at Paris that her brother, the invalid, had 
suddenly fallen in love with his sister's charming 
friend. Lady May displayed great tact in averting an 
avowal on his part, considering that she was an in- 
genue. Her friend was nice and agreeable, to be sure, 
but she was a Frenchwoman ! 

The following year the latter became the wife of 
the banker, the Marquis de Salecy. 

As for the household at Dubersly, its members were 
truly paralyzed over the new advent for the first few 



HAROLD, 



57 



* days, but it was not long before the norms of the 
manor obtained their accustomed placidity. Time 
slipped by without any incident worthy of record. 

For the first year Bright came down regularly from 
London, whither he was rapidly laying the founda- 
tion for that subsequent fame — a fame which has 
resounded throughout all England — and superintended 
and directed the child's welfare. Every Saturday 
afternoon the housekeeper and the three or four ser- 
vants installed in the establishment knew they were 
to expect Mr. Bright. They had already come to 
regard him as the real master of .Dubersly H'ouse, at 
least during such period as the young lord continued 
to reside abroad. He habitually questioned each of 
the servants closely, more particularly Ellen, the 
nurse, concerning the diet and proper airing of little 
Harold. Some of the instructions have been faithfully 
preserved to this day. They are certainly interesting. 

The infant was not to be out-of-doors too much ; its 
food was to be of the most delicate variety, sparingly 
administered ; its clothing of the softest and lightest 
texture ; above all, the nurse was never to omit the 
tepid bath twice a day, morning and night. 

Other directions were administered of a peculiar 
nature, with a view apparently to assoil the infant 
from the influences of its paternity. For many weeks 
a noted Edinburgh surgeon resided at the manor, and 
it is quite worthy of comment that he actually refused 
to take a fee for so doing. In conjunction with 
Inigo Bright, this person is declared to have per- 
formed a series of singular operations upon the tiny 
features of the black child. 



58 



HAROLD. 



Much of this has since been denied. There is trust- 
worthy evidence, however, to prove that the poor 
child's nose was pinched and tweaked to make it 
straight, his lips were squeezed to make them thin, 
and his legs splintered and rubbed to prevent the 
slightest tendency on their part to become bow-shaped ! 

Between the tortures of having his feet eternally 
bandaged to make them small and his hair and eye- 
brows shaved to make them thick and straight, little 
Harold's existence at this time must have been dis- 
tant, indeed, from pleasurable. 

But through it all the child perseveringly came, and 
at the age of two years was as tine a little English- 
man, from an exterior standpoint, as an ingenious 
carver could have produced from a block of ebony ! 

Nor must it be . supposed that Harold's mind, or 
rather his sensibilities were neglected, even at so 
early an age as three years. He had toys and picture- 
books by the score. Such were showered upon hi in 
with a prodigality which aimed to accustom him to 
personal splendor and the glory of proprietorship. 
Ellen Shaw, his nurse, showed herself to be devotedly 
attached to her strange little charge. She rarely left 
his side for a moment, and fondled and caressed him 
with as much tenderness and affection as a black 
mother could have shown, or, perhaps, if this simile 
be dubious, as if the child had been her own. 

The delight which Ellen exhibited at little Harold's 
first spoken words, which were forthwith translated 
to In igo Bright, was both beautiful and maternal. 
The nurse asseverated that the process of ablution 
having been brought to a successful close the morning 



HAROLD. 



59 



in question the Infant Harold had uttered, quite dis- 
tinctly, these words : " Ess — mamma — Ooo — gar — 
lugoo — o—o !" 

The which, for fear of misconstruction by her lis- 
tener, she hastened to interpret as an expression of 
Harold's regard for his foster-mother, who, in his 
opinion, was an eminently respectable person. Even 
Inigo Bright himself could hardly refrain from de- 
claring his thorough satisfaction that the word "love," 
in baby-lore, should be the first to pass the lips of his 
prodigy. 

A child's lips — portals destined to emit a vast and 
mighty train before they are set with the immutable 
seal — gay cavalcades, tender pageants, wise proces- 
sions, and fierce mobs of words. It were well if the 
first to pass through, faltering, doubtful of itself, be 
"love." 



CHAPTER IX. 



11 Coal black is better than another hue, 
In that it scorns to bear another hue." 

— Titus Andronicus. 

Inigo Bright's prodigy continued to develop into 
an exceedingly even-tempered, clever child, thus 
demonstrating, apparently, that even moral disposition 
is only a matter of physical treatment. 

Between the ages of three and four Harold learned 
to talk rapidly and fluently, and on his fourth birth- 
day earned the right to claim and subdue a fine rock- 
ing-horse, which his patron, Lord Middleton, thought- 
fully despatched from Germany. 

During all this period Harold had scarcely seen a 
soul apart from those with whom he came in daily 
contact. He had, it is true, remarked the village 
butcher, whose redness of jowl and fatness of paunch 
had from the first elicited his infant admiration. 
That Harold was a bright child showed itself daily in 
his talk. The many questions with which he loved to 
deluge his nurse attested the keenness of his percep- 
tion — a faculty which seemed to allow nothing which 
carried even the semblance of a ? to elude it. Natu- 
rally, the blackness of his skin was among the first 
subjects to demand explanation. Inigo Bright had 
foreseen this, and almost immediately marvellous 
picture-books, especially designed and colored, ex- 



HAROLD. 



61 



hibiting little black maidens and urchins in time-hon- 
ored Mother Goose diversions, sprang into being and 
became part and parcel of the nursery of Dubersly 
House. The rubicund visage of the butcher was thus 
emphasized on Harold's mind, and certain vague the- 
ories on the non-uniformity of color perplexed his 
thoughts. 

" 1 think I would rather be black all over than red 
in spots, like him, mamma," he observed, quite 
gravely, one morning, after a considerable time spent 
in a silent weighing of the subject. 

One of his favorite queries at this stage was : 

" Do black little boy-angels have bkck wings ?" 

It is a matter of doubt whether Nurse Ellen was en- 
tirely prepared to answer this question of celestial 
detail. Albeit she never faltered in her assent. 
" Yes, dear," she said. Harold seemed interested. 

" Shiny black, mamma? As black as Richelieu, 
or only as black as Tray ?" 

Richelieu was a cat of which Harold had been ex- 
ceedingly fond. One day his ardent affection had 
been alienated to a great extent by pussy's Shameless 
conduct. He insisted that Richelieu should share his 
bath. 

" Aren't you 'shame-d of yourself, you dirty, dirty 
kitty ? Come and wash, like Harold !" 

But Richelieu, callous to the opinion entertained by 
mankind, had vigorously declined to be soaped. 
After a short struggle, in which Harold was severely 
scratched, his master transferred his affection to Tray, 
of whose size and shagginess he had previously stood 
in some fear. The big Newfoundland, easily capable 



62 



HAKOLD. 



of bearing the child on his back as far as the latter 
wished to ride, was thenceforth profoundly attached 
to his master, and then and there an inseparable com- 
panionship was instituted between the two, to last 
until his dogship had passed to that bourne from 
which no wise dog or man should elect to return. 

After the child of Chloe had passed his fifth year, 
the faithful nurse and the aged gardener were wont 
to accompany these two friends on long excursions 
around the mere and to the berry bushes, which grew 
about the northern part of the hedge which bounded 
the estate. 

It was upon the occasion of one of these walks 
that an important incident happened. Believing that 
he heard the sound of carriage wheels on the drive- 
way, Andrew left the nurse to continue her walk 
alone or rest until his return. Ellen, whose orders 
were never to venture out without the escort of the 
footman or the gardener (exactly for what reason it 
would be difficult to say), immediately seated herself on 
a rustic bench near by, and, drawing forth some needle- 
work from her pocket, commenced to busy herself, 
while Harold gambolled without restraint on the path 
before her. Something more than simple needle- 
work, however, must have engrossed her mind, for, 
long before she became aware of it, her eyes were 
quite away from her charge. A number of dazzling 
butterflies — for it was in the height of summer — had 
flitted past little Harold. The temptation was great, 
and unconsciously, making no noise on the soft, vel- 
vety sod, he sped after them with all the ardor and 
enthusiasm of childhood. With Tray bounding before 



HAROLD. 63 

him he continued to run until he had reached the 
great hedge, and remarked the gaudiest object of his 
chase disappear serenely over its summit with the 
keenest disappointment. Tray, who was even more 
thoroughly infected with, the spirit of the occasion, 
was not to be balked by such a barrier, and, nosing, 
dog-like, about, quickly discovered a crevice, through 
which he bounded, and almost immediately returned 
to seek his little master. The second time the big- 
Newfoundland scurried under the hedge Harold had 
preceded him. The child had bounded through the 
passage with such vigor and agility, indeed, as to 
plant himself plump into the arms of a small boy, on 
the very edge of the adjoining domain. 

This boy was apparently about three years older 
than Harold, which is to say, between eight and 
nine. He was a manly, prepossessing little fellow. 
The pair were mutually so astonished, that for some 
moments they stood stock still, staring at each other 
with saucer eyes. Harold, who was the least aston- 
ished, recovered first. He did not express any greet- 
ing or frame any apology. 

" I am not afraid of you !" he said, stoutly ; " I 
have seen yotc in my picture-books." 

The other boy's first impulse was to run away, and 
it was some further moments before he could summon 
sufficient equanimity to utter a word. When he did 
so, he ejaculated, forcibly : 

" My eyes ! What a go !" Then, taking courage 
from the fact that his companion did not leap upon 
him and consume him by mouthfuls, he repeated 
" My eyes !" slowly, amazedly, and thoughtfully 



64 



HAEOLD. 



seven times. The small boy then climbed to the 
top of the hedge and let his feet dangle down 
from that eminence. At this exploit Harold grew 
a trifle embarrassed. He felt he ought to say some- 
thing. 

" This is Tray !" he said, presently, proffering the 
third party at the conference, who immediately set 
about wagging his tail with the utmost courtesy of 
demeanor. 

" Very well," assented the other, indifferently, 
u very well ; but, by George ! who are you f" 

" Harold. I live here — that is, over there !" 
The Experiment pointed a chubby, black finger in the 
direction of Dubersly. 

The elder boy made no answer to this. He spent 
the next few moments in a minute inspection of 
Harold's small person. Before this operation was 
satisfactorily completed : 

" Have you lived over yonder long ?" he inquired. 

" Five years," replied Harold, promptly. 

The other gave vent to a long, shrill whistle. It 
was now Harold's turn to stare. He had never heard 
anybody make that kind of a noise before. But he 
was too polite to comment. 

" Were you — born that way?" resumed the elder 
boy, casting a meaning glance at Harold's skin. 

"I don't understand you," faltered Harold. 
" What way ?" 

" Why, black, of course !" 

" Yes ; at least, 1 think 1 was. Were you ?" added 
Harold, delicately. 
" Were 1— what ?" 



HAROLD. 



65 



" Born that way ?" 

The other laughed uproariously. There was some 
danger of his falling off the hedge. 

" Hooray !" he repeated ; " this a lark !" With 
that he cast glances about the field and woods, as if it 
w T ere impossible that he could monopolize so great a 
lark much further alone. 

u Is your name nicer than mine?" inquired the 
Experiment. 

" Much nicer," stated that other, with prompt 
candor — " Arthur Danthorne." 

" Isn't that a little long ?" ventured Harold. 

66 Cracky, no ! What's the rest of yours ? Some- 
thing besides Harold, ain't there ?" 

" I am quite sure there is not !" retorted Harold, 
decisively. 

The pair conversed for five minutes more, while the 
poor nurse, two hundred yards away, was half beside 
herself in despair and agitation. Arthur Danthorne 
descended at length from his perch, and became quite 
friendly and familiar, after having convinced himself 
that his new friend was in no way different from any 
of the six-year-olds of his Axborough acquaintance, 
apart from the remarkable color of his cuticle. He 
was certainly a little ignorant, but Master Danthorne 
readily untook to enlighten him in the mysteries of 
marbles and kite-flying. 

" My eyes !" he ejaculated, " but you are queer I" 

" Do your — eyes trouble you?" solicited Harold, 
with compassion. 

" My — bless you, no ! they do not," said Master 
Danthorne. 



66 



HAROLD, 



Harold gave a start. 

U I must go back to my mamma. She will miss 
me," lie said, with a twinge of conscience. 

His companion opened his favorite organs wider 
than ever this time. 

" Your mamma!" he exclaimed. " Is — is she 
black, too?" 

" No, Arthur Danthorne ; she is pink /" 

Arthur looked wistfully around. Some one must 
surely behold these cumulative wonders. The sky 
remained in place. 

" It's too bad ! Are you going ? I shall ask my 
grandpapa to let me come over and play with you. 
You know, I don't usually play with small boys. / 
am nearly nine, you know, and the fellows at Axbor- 
ough would laugh a jolly great deal. Good-by, then. " 

Whereupon he shook Harold's black hand, which, 
black as it was, was softer and more delicate than his 
own, and watched him with interest as the Experiment 
departed hastily through the crevice in the hedge. 



CHAPTER X. 



! • Quickness of mind and the charms of conversation are gifts 
of nature or the fruits of an education begun in the cradle." — 
Balzac. 

After his interview with Master Arthur Danthorne 
the mind of Inigo Bright's prodigy widened and 
began to take a new co]or. He naturally yearned for 
companionship. 

In the studies of human development which Mr. 
Bright had made in the course of his travels, he had 
brought himself to a singular conviction. It was 
that human character is best moulded or directed at 
two distinct vital periods — namely, between the ages 
of four and seven and from fourteen to nineteen. 

It was his belief that during the foregoing first 
period the child should be surrounded by strong adult 
influences and apart from recreative companionship. 
After the tension has been drawn, a single hour with 
a playmate of its own age will suffice to snap it. He 
, alluded to what the world called precocity in children, 
and observed that the greatest intellects the world has 
ever seen are spoken of as being precocious during 
this period. 

The bent of a child is naturally tow r ard looseness, 
idleness, and volatility, and partial solitude, with a 
thorough intellectual environment, is recommended. 



68 



HAROLD. 



Contrary to accepted belief (so ran his views), the most 
critical period in tlie life of a healthy child is be- 
tween four and seven years. It was then that the 
spiritual dough received its leaven, that the twig was 
bent. Even the development of the race, he says, in 
a more recent pamphlet, is all but the development 
of the individual. 

In due time Harold's tutor arrived, a clever young 
Alsatian, carefully procured by Inigo Bright, with 
the assistance of his friend, Lord Middleton. The 
name of this tutor Was Felix Schonberg. He had 
been a student at Heidelberg, and spoke English quite 
faultlessly. He was tall, athletic, with a good-hu- 
mored countenance, versatile, rode like Bertalla and 
fenced like Da Maitre. After this, what more remains 
to be said ? Harold took to him kindly. Schonberg, 
for his part, entered into his task with enthusiasm. 

" So you read already, eh V he said to Harold. 

" I think Thomas Merton was a very disagreeable 
boy," observed Harold, by way of reply. 

" What books do you like best?" asked Felix, 
smiling in spite of himself. 

" If you please, I enjoy the 6 Arabian Nights ' very 
much, but I like the story of Aladdin best of all." 

" Ha, ha !" Herr Schonberg laughed. 

Herr Schonberg fell to work. 

When August came, the Axborough scholar, on his 
vacation, sought in vain for his prospective playmate. 1 
Harold was not to be seen. He had his playtime, if 
in a somewhat different way. The first year was 
almost entirely devoted to deportment. In those 
long talks and quiet games with Felix he was really 



HAROLD, 



69 



acquiring much that was to be useful to him in the 
attainment of Caucasian culture. 

On his seventh birthday, it is related that the little 
prisoner was released for a time, and gave a grand 
party, at which there were many strange faces, includ- 
ing Arthur Danthorne and two little girl cousins of 
his lordship. These latter were distinguished by 
wide-open eyes and insatiable curiosity. 

This occasion, as has been shown, marked the end 
of Harold's isolation, and Arthur Danthorne and the 
little aristocratic cousins, as well as a youthful pleb 
from the village, were often visitors at Dubersly 
Manor. There was no longer any reason why the 
child should be kept from society ; it was now merely 
a question of choosing the society he should mingle in. 

This Experiment of Mr. Bright' s had already begun 
to be noised in high circles, in which the journalist 
had begun to move. Shortly after this Bright left 
journalism for a Parliamentary career. 

When Lord Shrewsdale and the Hon. Albemarle 
Melton came to Dubersly, in the year of grace 187-, 
they found a fine, manly, curly-haired English boy of 
eight summers. He was polite, sweet-tempered, and 
as black as ebony. "When they entered the drawing- 
root^, he was standing listening to the crude perform- 
ances of Ellen Shaw upon the old-fashioned harpsi- 
chord. Harold was so occupied that he did not hear 
the door open and Mr. Bright and the two gentlemen 
enter. As he turned round and saw them, the child 
made a bow profound for one of his years. He came 
forward in a captivating way and shook hands with 
liis guardian, as he had come to know Inigo Bright. 



TO 



HAROLD. 



"1 am greatly honored to have the pleasure of 
meeting your lordship. How do you do, Mr. Mel- 
ton ? Shall I ring for some wine ?" 

Lord Shrewsdale burst into a peal of uncontrollable 
laughter. Harold's face was perfectly grave and he 
wore an air of childish dignity. 

" What are your studies now, Hal?" asked Mr. 
Bright. He knew perfectly well. 

" Grammar and history and geography, sir. Mr. 
Felix reads to me in the afternoons and then I read 
to him. We have read ever so many books that way. 
I think, perhaps, you would be pleased to know Mr. 
Felix. Don't you think the gentlemen w r ould like to 
know my tutor, Uncle Inigo ?" 

" I dare say the gentlemen would, Hal. In a half 
hour you may return with him. Run along now for 
your walk." 

" 1 can hardly believe my senses !" exclaimed Lord 
Shrewsdale, with emotion, when the black child had 
left the room. " Why, he has the gentleness and 
bearing of a duke's son ! I would take him for all the 
world to be an Englishman !" 

" Is he not ?" asked Albemarle Melton. " 1 own, 
for one, 1 am already converted to the doctrine of 
organic equality. But, good Heavens ! what becomes 
of race superiority ?" 

" Never fear," returned the new M.P. ; "it will 
always exist. The past is the past. Pride of blood 
will ever be pride of blood. You know our modern 
proverb about machine-made goods. The gold that 
the alchemist will make offhand out of clay will ever 
be held inferior to that compounded by nature. 3 ' 



HAROLD. 71 

• 

"Yet 'twill pass 'Change as well. But you are 
right, the coarsest hand-made lace is deemed far more 
precious than the finest products of the machine." 

" Yes," reflected Lord Shrewsdale, as he journeyed 
back to Westminster ; <£ if this black child fulfils the 
promise he now shows, our old notions are shattered ! 
One might have suspected that education would have 
tamed the savage blood in him somewhat ; that in his 
shallow brain learning might somehow have been 
pounded like it was into Darwin's Fuegans ; but that 
he should take kindly to it, that he should develop 
gentleness and even manliness — well, it's astounding, 
that's all !" 

66 I don't see why it is any more marvellous for the 
son of a savage to become a savant than for the son 
of a savant to grow up a savage and feed on roots and 
shrubs. It is all a matter of health. One could 
change a man's whole nature if his mind w r ouldn't 
give way under the operation. The danger in both 
cases is that the subject will go off his hooks. Bright 
will yet have an idiot on his hands." 

Such was Hon. Albemarle Melton's commentary 
solus. 

Among the friends of his childhood to whom 
Harold became sincerely attached was Robert Ellis, a 
boy of his own age, who had lost both his parents by 
consumption. He was himself pale and sickly, and 
evidently not destined long for this world. His uncle 
was a writer on one of the great London dailies, eking 
out the paltriest of pittances. Inigo Bright fell upon 
l|im, and he secured the friendship of that rising man. 
When Inigo heard of the misfortune which had be- 



HAROLD, 



fallen the boy, he was at once for carrying him off to 
Dubersly House, which plan, his fellow-journalist 
gladly agreeing, was quickly effected. The two boys 
became from the first mutually fond of each other. 
Robert was tender, sympathetic, and fonder of study 
than of violent sport, which made robust little Harold 
look upon him with compassion, as the strong will 
look upon the weak. Harold could now ride almost 
as well as Herr Felix, and indulged freely in all sorts 
of out-door exercise. Robert looked upon these feats 
with admiration, and never tired of applauding Hal's 
skill. Strange as it may seem, it never once entered 
his mind that there was any difference of caste be- 
tween him and his comrade. The fact that Harold 
was a negro seemed to heighten his attraction and 
make him still more out of the common. In fact, 
this may not be wondered at much. In Liverpool, 
where the Ellis family had resided, the neighborhood 
was not conspicuous for anything besides a horde of 
small ruffians, whose parents were generally too de- 
voted to their warehouses and avocations to pay much 
attention to the manner in which their children com- 
ported themselves out of school hours. A white boy 
of Harold's mien and accomplishments would, it is 
certain, have been a prodigious phenomenon. 

So time went on until one day the announcement 
came that Lord Middleton had decided upon a return 
to England. It was whispered that the medical 
fraternity had finally given him up, and that he came 
home for the simple boon of dying on English 
soil. 

And; indeed, it was only a wreck of his former self 



HAROLD, 



73 



that the cheering villagers saw lifted from his carriage 
one day and come halting on the arm of his sister 
and his friend Bright into the halls of his ancestors. 
Harold was on the steps with the rest of the house- 
hold, and his lordship had patted him on the head and 
shaken his hand with evident delight and amazement. 
He had heard much of his progress and he had the 
boy's likeness — which, it is interesting to know, had 
been taken thrice before he was ten — often before him 
in the apartments at Wiesbaden and Carlsbad. Dur- 
ing the next few weeks Harold was his sole recreation. 
It beat any four physicians in Europe, his lordship 
used to say, laughing, to hear the young savage, who 
should have been making a good meal off a broiled 
missionary by this time, decline Latin nouns by the 
stringful. 

Harold's droll account of the manner in which he 
and Robert caught a hare — tied twenty yards of twine 
to its leg and let it go — sent Lady May and himself 
into peals of merriment. To see Harold ride his 
pony, he declared, was the best thing, upon his honor, 
since Astley's. As his lordship grew weaker, he was 
never so much entertained as when Harold was read- 
ing to him stories from 66 Tom Jones" or " Humphrey 
Clinker," or, perhaps, the " Arabian Nights" or 
" Robinson Crusoe," all of which his favorite vol- 
umes, previously expurged and amended by Inigo 
Bright. One day his lordship said : 

u I must have had a presentiment that my share in 
your experiment, Inigo, would prove wholly selfish. 
It is as if you had trained something to amuse me. 
Do you know, I thought I should have burst to-day 



74 



HAROLD. 



when the rascal gravely asked me if T did not consider 
Crusoe's man Friday a beast. He and his tribe should 
have been ' ashamed of themselves for going about 
naked, ' said he. By no means, my dear Inigo, abate 
a jot of his education on my account." 

" I told you, Middleton, that I was offered the 
Berlin consulship last month. I refused it. My ■ 
book on the Afghan question has brought me a thou- 
sand pounds. My share in the Morning Gazette 
brings me that a year." 

"You prosper, old fellow. But I hope you do 
not mean that the boy is becoming costly— that I had 
better save my money for my heirs ?" 

Bright was silent. 

" Indeed," continued Lord Middleton, merrily, " I 
may as well inform you that 1 am very fond of this 
child. I have left him a matter of thirty thousand 
in my will." 

u But my ! — " began the other with a flashed brow. 

" Tut, tut, there ! I wish it. It is better there 
than with a couple of country cousins whom I have 
scarcely ever seen. The long line of Dubersly steps 
down and out when I perform that diverting cere- 
mony." 

Inigo did not protest further. He was secretly and 
outwardly delighted. But he had other matters which 
claimed his attention more fully. His speech on the 
Canadian Loans had attracted attention throughout the 
whole kingdom. He was half glad that the weight of 
the Experiment had been thus taken off his hands. 

One fine morning in early May Henry Dubersly, 



HAROLD, 



V75 



Marquis of Middleton, was found dead in his bed. 
His valet averred lie had been awake the entire night, 
but that his lordship had expired without a sound. 
Harold felt instinctively that he had lost a friend and 
patron. He experienced loss by the hand of death the 
first time. Harold was then in his twelfth year. 

When the will was opened after his lordship's 
death, it was found that he had judiciously made the 
bequest to the child of Chloe in the name of Inigo 
Bright, to be held in trust for the former at the 
nominal legatee's sole discretion. The rest of the 
estate went to his lordship's sister, barring a bequest 
of two thousand pounds "to the widow of John 
Holland (otherwise Mrs. Hope Walworth), lately de- 
parted this life.' ' 

In the autumn Harold was taken to London by 
Herr Felix for the first time. He was grown a fine 
lad. There was no sign of the intellectual collapse 
suggested by Mr. Albemarle Melton. He was quick- 
witted to a degree. It is a singular fact, however, 
that he rarely indulged in laughter. His broad brow 
would never have betokened the Ethiop. His hair, 
cut close, had a coarse, becoming curl. 

Those who saw him wondered if it were not possi- 
ble, after what had been done, to make his ebony 
skin white. Lord Shrewsdale, who viewed him again, 
declared on his oath that it would be no whit more 
remarkable. 

After a season in London Harold returned to Du- 
bersly, and the next few years were passed in the 
shadow of the manor, with scarcely an incident. 
Herr Felix never seemed to weary of his pupil, but 



76 



HAROLD, 



he was settling down into those mature German ways, 
proverbial with males of the Empire, after passing 
their thirty-fifth birthday. 

Harold did not really emerge from his obscurity 
until he became of age. 

Mr. Bright had planned a long continental tour for 
him, and, agreeably to this, he departed from the 
shores of his native land on the day following his 
twenty-first birthday. 



CHAPTER XI. 



" WherefQre base ? 
When my dimensions are as well compact, 
My mind as generous and my shape as true 
As honest madam's issue ? Why brand they me 
With base ? with baseness V' 

— King Lear. 

Dubeeslt House, October 16, 188-. 
Dearest Danthoene : You cannot even imagine 
how glad I am to have gotten away from London at 
last. Of course it has been an uninterrupted round 
of pleasure — hobnobbing, as the expression goes, with 
dukes and earls, constancy to theatre parties and ball- 
rooms, and visits to places of interest, with absolutely 
no study. Yet it has all been so unreal, so unaccus- 
tomed and strange, that I have been in a semi-febrile 
state from the moment the whole nightmare began. 
And yet Mr. B. says I have comported myself admi- 
rably. He also compliments Herr F. on his talents 
as a dancing-master. I have not had time actually to 
think. Those eight months in London seem eight 
long years to me this bright autumn morning as I look 
back over them. Oh ! Danthorne, I know I have no 
right, after all that Mr. B. has done for me since my 
parents died, to be ungrateful, but sometimes I wish 
< — I wish — I could meet and know a man or woman 
who did not wear a white shin. I suppose it is some- 
thing within yearning for expression that impels me 
to mean and ungrateful thoughts sometimes. I feel 



78 



HAROLD. 



then, old fellow, that I would willingly give up half 
my fortune and education to be able to wash the 
accursed blackness out of my flesh. "When in my 
more' rational moods, however, I know that it is 
because I am not among my own people, or rather 
the people of my fathers, that I am thus affected. It 
seems trivial, perhaps, but the Queen of Hawaii, 
whom I met at the Earl of L — 's reception the other 
evening, seemed thoroughly happy and contented and 
not anxious to have any other hue than her own. 

I wonder if it isn't vanity, anyway ? Half the 
ladies in London cover their faces so insufferably with 
rouge, that they may have green or purple skins for 
all the rest of us know. You know, Danthorne, I am 
a thorough Saxon, and, after all, I don't suppose I'd 
be content, if I had any option in the matter, with 
even being white-skinned and black- whiskered, like a 
Frenchman ; I should want a blond pate as well. 

But why does F. keep me so confined in my knowl- 
edge of my father's race. To be sure, I know that 
he {mon pere) was an Abyssinian gentleman and a 
member of the Abyssinian Parliament, who emigrated 
to England with my mother. She died shortly after 
losing him and when I was only six months old. I 
have read over and over again a book about Abyssinia 
that Mr. Bright gave me, too, arid I cannot see that 
life there differs much from life in England. I fancy 
it must be pleasanter, because so few leave their coun- 
try. Mr. B. fears, perhaps, that I should be seized 
with some romantic notion, d la Prince Rasselas, to 
leave England, because he tells me very little about 
my own fatherland. The other day I heard some- 



HAROLD. 



79 



thing about a great colony of black people (probably 
Abyssinians) in America, and when I asked about them 
further, the gentleman who was talking appeared em- 
barrassed, and said he was but slightly informed on 
the subject. 

Now, my dear Arthur, for a further confidence, 
for I know I can trust you. I dare not tell Mr. B., 
but a great change has just come over my life. I am 
terribly in love— yes, in love with the most charming 
woman I ever met. Her name is Mabel Yere, and I 
met her first at a reception which I attended with 
Mr. B. She is, besides, one of the cleverest girls in 
England, and took a mathematical prize at Oxford 
over the heads of the male wranglers. Everybody is 
talking about her. The whole of the first evening 
she did nothing but sit by me and talk mathematics 
and literature. It seemed so odd that she should have 
found the other people so stupid as to let me monopo- 
lize her until supper-time. I wonder if she knew 
how much I admired her. By the by, everybody 
appears to know me wherever I go in London. 1 
suppose that is because I am the ward of Inigo Bright. 
I fancy many would be only too glad to change 
places with your very humble servant ; but, to tell the 
truth, I never was very happy after leaving dear old 
Dubersly until I met Mabel Yere. I have seen her a 
dozen times since then (I could wish it a thousand), 
and each time she has been so kind to me and ap- 
peared to me so beautiful, that it has been as much 
as I could do, old fellow, to keep from falling down 
and telling her what was in my heart then and there — - 
just, I suppose, as the hero-princes used to do in the 



so 



HAROLD. 



olden times (according to the fairy tales). Now I 
have left London, what am I to do ? — about Mabel 
Vere, I mean ? Would you advise me to tell Mr. B. 
first ? I suppose that would be the best course. But, 
then, I am quite sure that he has other plans for me — 
perhaps to have me espouse a woman of my own race. 
They may be a very charming people, those Abys- 
sinians, but I don't think any of their women could 
ever be to me what Mabel Vere is. " Fiddlesticks /" 
you will say to all this. Nevertheless, I feel much 
better, now that I have told you all. I don't care if 
you do laugh at my presumption in thinking Miss 
Vere cares for me and make light of my passion. I 
think I know my duty, however, in spite of what I 
have said. You know I go on the continent in a 
couple of months. I think 1 wrote you to that effect 
in my last letter. 

Well, my dear Danthorne, there is no news here at 
Dubersly to relate, so I may as well finish off this ab- 
surd letter without further ceremony. 

Yours, as ever, 

Harold Bright. 

Arthur Daxthorne, Esq. 

London, November 3, 188-. 

Dear Danthorne : I wonder what it all means ! 
What is it you have been hiding from me ? I came 
up to London last week. I told Mr. B. that I in- 
tended calling on the Veres, and he told me that I 
must not. Why is it that I am not allowed to move 
about in the world except as a prisoner ? To be sure, 
I am not yet of age, but is he fearful that I will be 



HAROLD. 



81 



assassinated ? But enough of this. I met Miss Vere 
last night at a reception, and could contain myself no 
longer. At my very first words she turned so pale, 
and appeared — if I can bring my pen to write the 
term — horror-stricken ! It seems to me now that if 
some wild beast had sprung suddenly before her, the 
expression of her countenance could not have been so 
very different. It w T as at a dark end of the balcony, 
and the spot was deserted except by us two. I feared 
from her countenance that she was going to call for 
help. My blood almost froze in my veins as I saw 
her thus recoil from me. But as we approached the 
light from one of the conservatory windows her con- 
duct changed, and I saw 1 had not been deceived 
when I believed Mabel Yere to be a thoroughly sin- 
cere and self-possessed girl. I need not tell you all 
she said, but she told me enough to make me under- 
stand that I had made a huge mistake. Her manner 
was all kindness and compassion, and I have no doubt 
she spoke sensibly ; but it angered and irritated me to 
such an extent that I was quite beside myself, and 
begged her for God's sake to stop. I saw her once 
again during the evening, and noted the peculiar ex- 
pression of her eyes. She seemed to be lost in won- 
der, and regarded me with a mixture of pity and curi- 
osity. I wonder myself if she thought me a doll or a 
waxwork to be played with and smiled at, as if human 
emotions were the last things in the world she fancied 
me endowed with. 

# * -jf * # * 

I have begged my guardian to hasten the period 



82 



HAROLD. 



when my studies shall cease and I shall have departed 
for two years of continental travel. I trust it may 
be some time in January. 

Adieu, my dear Danthorne, until we meet. 

As ever, 

H. B. 



CHAPTER XII. 



" Desdemona. "Well praised ! How if (he) be black and witty ?" 

— Othello. 

Harold Bright was the first of his race to enter 
the brilliant Paris salon of Madame Salecy. He 
crossed the threshold with a step firm and graceful. 
It was natural that a murmur of astonishment should 
escape such an assemblage of wit, learning, and 
beauty. A similar phenomenon had not been seen in 
Paris for many a day. Harold's bearing was aristo- 
cratic to the full. He made his entrance arm-in-arm 
with Arthur Danthorne, the playmate and friend of 
his childhood. Danthorne was well known to Madame 
Salecy' s circle, where his excellent good nature and his 
talents were quite as well appreciated as at the embassy. 

To the right, as the two friends entered, stood a 
little group of four men, English with one exception. 
A tiny red ribbon adorned the button-hole of the 
exception, no other than the famous General Louis 
Legarde. 

As Harold Bright and his friend Danthorne ap- 
proached this group, one of the four started forward 
and shook the attache by the hand. He was the 
youngest person in the present circle, if one might 
judge by features, complexion, and manner. He 
gave the impression of a litterateur. The others 
were lay civilians. 



84 



HAROLD. 



"Remington,'' exclaimed Danthorne, " let me in- 
troduce to you Mr. Harold Bright. Harold, Mr. 
Julius Remington, the author of 'Palaces Fair' and 
i Herr Utopia,' undisputably the hooks of the year." 

Remington flushed at this fulsome compliment. 
He shook Harold's hand warmly. His two compan- 
ions went through the handshaking part of the pres- 
entation with a sort of dazed courage. They had 
never done such a thing before ; it was like saluting 
their coachman. "Mais, qui a peur f" they ap- 
peared to ask themselves ; evidently it was a case of 
" follow my leader." 

The Frenchman grunted his astonishment when he 
heard Harold's name pronounced. His suspicions 
having been pointed toward a Haytian diplomat, it 
is almost unnecessary to say his sensibilities were little 
prepared for the impression of grace and dignity 
which the black made upon him. He stared, stroked 
his pointed beard, and bowed. 

" May I ask if I am speaking to a Haytian ?" he 
inquired in French. 

" I am an Englishman," Harold replied, simply. 

It was the turn of the two civilians to stare. 

What masquerading Ethiop was this, who had the 
impudence to call himself Englishman ! 

They felt inclined to laugh, but immediately re- 
pressed the inclination, and looked upon Danthorne's 
friend with extreme compassion. Remington appeared 
fascinated, an extraordinary interest which he essayed 
to hide by a commonplace remark addressed to his 
newly made acquaintance. 

" Have you been many days in Paris ?" he asked. 



HAROLD. 



85 



" I arrived yesterday with my comrade and tutor," 
replied Harold. 66 We are contemplating a year or 
two of travel." 

" Indeed," said Remington. 

" Mr. Bright is modest in setting forth his plans," 
Danthorne hastened to say ; " he is to bring all parts 
of three continents within his visionary scope — in 
tarn. I can only add I envy him." 

During this colloquy General Legarde had recov- 
ered his voice and was about to speak. At this mo- 
ment every head was suddenly turned, and Madame 
de Salecy was seen entering the room. A number of 
charming young ladies in ravishing toilettes accom- 
panied her, among them being the famous Baronne 
Zweifollern, who chanced to preside over a salon of 
her own in Berlin. The eyes of Madame de Salecy 
roamed over the company, as if seeking for some one. 
The hostess was of medium height. Her hair was jet 
black and her complexion a pale olive. Her smile, 
distinctly feminine and winning, suffused a counte- 
nance that had much of imperiousness and high intel- 
lectual power. Her glance rested upon Harold Bright, 
and she swept rapidly toward him with her dazzling 
retinue. It was at this crisis that General Louis 
Legarde made a quick step forward with a glow of 
pleasure. 

" Ah, madame, c'est un plaisir— " he began. 

" A moi aussi, general," interrupted the lady, 
coolly ; "metis, vous rtetes pas le lion ce soir-ci. 
Voila ! Have you met — pardon — Will Mr. Dan- 
thorne present me to one I already know F 3 

It was a rule of Madame de Salecy's to hold and 



86 



HAROLD. 



not to attend receptions. Like a famous predecessor 
of hers, she often made advances to those whose 
society she desired to cultivate. In this case she was 
the one woman in Europe beyond the Channel who 
knew of this protege of Lord Middleton's — this sub- 
ject of the celebrated Inigo Bright. Perhaps she 
never forgot how near she once came to being Mar- * 
chioness of Middleton. 

With a turn for the same science and experimentia 
with which they had been animated, her curiosity was 
now elevated to the highest pitch. It was not to be 
disappointed. No courtier or cavalier of the times of 
Elizabeth or Louis le Grand ever rose more thoroughly 
or completely to the occasion. Harold even kissed 
her hand. 

u 1 am flattered," he said, with the most faultless 
accent — " flattered beyond my deserts ; much more, 
madame, I feel sure, than my poor merit demands." 

This last phrase was spoken in such dulcet tones 
that everybody but Madame de Salecy took it for a 
compliment. Her quick wit detected a reproof, and 
she felt herself glow with enhanced interest. 

" Pas d'automaton," she thought, as she presented 
le sable Anglais to the company. 

Le sable Anglais Harold forthwith became for a 
time. As for the poor General Legarde, he was over- 
whelmed with confusion. A portion of his embarrass- 
ment and chagrin may, perhaps, have rested in the 
fact of his recent return from Africa — a fact which 
may readily be recalled by an astute reader of the 
newspapers. 

As for the ladies of the salon, they surrounded 



HAROLD. 



87 



Harold. Some admired his magnificent physique, 
which his immaculate, close-fitting attire served ill to 
conceal. Others delighted in his flow of language 
and his quick wit. His tapering fingers were an 
anomaly ; his clear, sable complexion, his pleasing 
smile, his finely shaped head, and, above all, the 
uniqueness of the occasion proved an attraction like 
to no other which had ever graced the doors of 
Theresa Louise Marie Salecy. 

" Est-ce reel," whispered one young lady to an- 
other ; 66 vous etes sur, ce n'est pas tout un chapitre 
de Gulliver?" 

" And which are we," returned her friend, gayly, 
" the giants or the pigmies V ' 

"Voila! pour replique," laughed Mademoiselle 
Blanc ; " are we not binding him fast with cords ?" 

" And the mistake of choosing dwarfs for giants," 
broke in Madame Salecy at her elbow, having over- 
heard the colloquy with a smile, "I never commit. 
Pigmies are never seen in my salon, n'est-ce pas ?" 

But, in truth, Madame Salecy, intrepid as she was, 
had felt nervous when she determined to greet Harold 
in public. Now mingled with her gratified surprise 
was naturally a feeling of profound relief. The 
novelty somewhat worn off, she left her guest to his 
own devices or those of his friends, and went to meet 
the captivating Signor d'Artili, who had promised 
faithfully to render several waltzes of his own imper- 
ishable composition upon the violin. 

A new experience broke thus upon the horizon of 
Harold Bright, and one which he bore well and with 
equanimity. He took pride in thinking that his char- 



88 



HAROLD. 



acter was asserting itself. For the moment he forgot 
Mabel Yere. At supper, perhaps, he forgot her com- 
pletely. He sat at the right of his hostess, and Ma- 
dame Salecy monopolized his attention completely. 

" Travelling is very romantic," she observed. She 
purposely spoke in a loud tone that all. might hear. 

" Is it?" asked Harold, not unconscious that fifty 
pairs of eyes were fastened upon him. " For the 
first time, madame, yes ; it is like a voyage of dis- 
covery. When one has read much of the travels of 
others it is merely like reading a play and seeing it 
acted." 

" The drama of travel," laughed Madame Salecy. 

" As for real voyages of discovery," resumed Har- 
old, w they are no longer possible. Xow that Stanley 
and Livingstone have opened up Africa, every school- 
boy can describe to you with irreverent familiarity all 
the nooks and corners of the once great unfathomable 
globe." 

Remington heard the remark across the table. It 
would have surprised Harold to be told how little he 
himself knew of the world to which he so glibly 
referred. 

"And all the romance is gone," said Remington, 
" the delicious speculation we used to attach to the 
tales of travellers." 

" Et le pauvre Capitaine Cook !" laughed the fair 
hostess ; " must he stay at home ?" 

" Oli, no," retorted Remington ; " he can go to the 
Korth Pole !" 

"And freeze to death," growled M. Bristhoff, of 
the Russian Legation. " I detest romance. We of 



HAROLD. 



89 



the nineteenth century are not children to be amused 
with fairy tales. Thank Heaven, the writers of to-day 
are in a better business." 

cc So much the worse for the writers of to-day and 
us," broke in Harold, in his frank, boyish tones, and 
with a quick glance at Remington; u your realists 
are making the horizon of life smaller than it really 
is. This is a broad and a hale world, and every man 
is right to love the romance of others. 1 have heard 
it said our lives are never romances to ourselves." 

The Russian coughed. 

"Now, Tolstoi—" 

"A narrow soul," exclaimed Remington, warmly ; 
" one who has discovered a system of literary alchemy 
by which virtue is really turned into a synonyme for 
vice. This man deserves the distinction of being the 
greatest dupe of himself that ever lived." 

" You entertain pronounced views, Mr. Reming- 
ton," said Madame Salecy, after a general silence at 
that end of the table. " And what do you think of 
our M. Zola?" 

" A tolerable photographer, madame. He points 
his apparatus at the Parisians, and they are delighted 
with the cold, flat, expressionless print. He does not 
paint. There is no warmth, no pulsating color in his 
works. Daguerre amused and startled them the same 
way. I prefer light and shadows and the warmth of 
color — in short, art. Zola is the first of a school, and 
attracted attention. Unfortunately that is the distinc- 
tion he will leave to posterity. A horde is already 
following." 

Madame de Salecy frowned a little. She did not 



90 



HAROLD. 



intend that Mr. Remington should monopolize the 
talk and denounce her favorites. She engaged Har- 
old on the subject of the drama. 

Then ensued a more or less diverting discussion on the 
•merits of the various French and English dramatists, 
upon which theme Harold appeared especially at ease. 

Upon the whole, Madame de Salecy was as much * 
astonished at the breadth of her protege's knowledge 
as she was at the vigor of his opinions. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



" Betwixt us and the crowning race." 

— Tennyson. 

Harold arrived at his hotel very late from Madame 
de Salecy's. Walker, his valet, was ready to receive 
him and help him disrobe. 

" Where is Mr. Felix ?" he asked, as Walker began 
busying himself over his master's discarded attire. 
Ketired just this half hour, sir." 

This was the first time since Harold could remember 
that he had been left to return home unescorted by 
either tutor or guardian. 

" Do you wish to be called in the morning, sir?" 
continued Walker, as his master signified his desire to 
be alone. 

"No, Walker; I don't think we have made any 
engagement before three. Good-night." 
The valet retired. 

The season at Paris was as lively and as full of inci- 
dent as any man could wish — even the most bored of 
London society people. 

Before twenty-four hours had passed over the heads 
of the inhabitants of the capital Harold became a lion. 
Rumors concerning him had flitted from the Rue 
du Poires to the Champs de Mars, and flitted back 
again. Figaro christened him the Black Prince. 
The wits crowded in upon Madame de Salecy to inquire 
what Cassiopeia her protege was seeking. Marvellous 



92 



HAROLD. 



flashes of wit and wisdom were attributed to liim. It 
w r as " Have you heard ?" and " The Black Prince has 
said it." The children who saw him in the Champs 
got up brand-new fairy tales among themselves, in 
which le -prince noir and le roi Blackamoor figured 
heroically. The professional comedians referred to 
him in their nocturnal sallies ; the illustrated weeklies 
printed what professed to be his portrait. Could 
fame do more ? No. 

Out of le monde, one tenth of the Parisians who 
saw him in the Bois, dashing along on his natty Eng- 
lish cob, believed him an Abyssinian nabob. The 
other nine tenths really suspected him to be a dandy 
of the faubourg, whose madman's caprice had taken 
the form of blacking his face in order to get himself 
talked about. 

Every day Felix Schonberg, as punctually as clock- 
work, entered an account of the day's proceedings in 
a small volume provided by his employer, Mr. Bright, 
and which was subsequently to come under his inspec- 
tion. Some of the entries which Herr Felix made at 
this time would have cost Harold a pang of humilia- 
tion had he known of it. 

If the Experiment had remained long in Paris both 
might have come off with palled sensibilities. At last 
the shrewd tutor and companion perceived that Ma- 
dame de Salecy was growing weary of replying to in- 
finite questions relating to his charge. Six weeks had 
already elapsed. He decided that he and Harold 
should post off to Marseilles. 

Harold had, in a very natural way, when one con- 
siders his manner of education, unconsciously fallen 



HAROLD. 



93 



into the habit of perfect acquiescence in all plans and 
propositions involving himself. Although he was 
now past man's estate and the legal possessor of a 
small fortune, it never once occurred to him to pro- 
test against the domination of one whom he knew to 
be a hired dependent, paid from his own funds. 
Felix Schonberg, on the other hand, had the common 
propensity of his countrymen to acquire ways from 
the nature of their surroundings and to grow set in 
those ways. He looked upon Harold very much as 
the product of his own handiwork, not altogether 
void of volition, perhaps, but with a will at all times 
subservient to his own. This arrangement had so far 
been satisfactory to both. 

" The present is not the best time to visit Paris," 
said Madame de Salecy, at parting with her protege, 
"but I hope you have enjoyed yourself and found 
the Parisians hospitable." 

Harold could not have complained on that score. 
It would take a huge volume to relate the conversa- 
tions and entertainments he participated in during his 
stay in the French capital. He had been present at a 
Presidential reception, where he met many distin- 
guished statesmen. He had attended sessions of the 
Chamber of Deputies and conversed with the delegates. 
He went to the Theatre Frangais to witness a new play 
by a master dramatist, and smoked a cigar with its 
author afterward. A renowned painter had begged for 
a sitting, and afterward presented Harold with a cop} r 
of the sketch he then made. In short, if he had not 
seen more of Paris than one tourist in a thousand does, he 
had seen much more of what was really worth seeing. 



94 



HAROLD. 



At Marseilles they stayed longer — two months 
(making frequent excursions into the interior) — in order 
to get a more perfect idea of France sans Paris, and 
also to acquire a knowledge of provincial customs. 
Thence to Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin. Here at Berlin 
the Reichstag was in session, and Harold encountered 
statesmen and warriors whose names were familiar 
words throughout Europe. The name, too, of Inigo 
Bright was a talisman which secured him everything. 

The young and radical " rising hopes" of the German 
Empire especially interested Harold. They talked of 
politics as they would of a play. Bismarck was to 
them a great actor — a great artist. Several of these 
young persons condemned the whole piece inconti- 
nently. Some said it was a farce, others called it 
tragedy. The freedom of speech which they em- 
ployed in discussing political affairs w^ould be consid- 
ered a liberal education by most young diplomats. 

At a certain dinner given by the young Baron Stiltz, 
Harold and Herr Felix were present. This is the 
groove in which the talk ran on during the repast : 

" Depend upon it, this Leopold deserves watching. 
It is all very well for mein Herr Chancellor to pretend 
there is nothing intended but what appears on the 
surface. The King of the Belgians is too shrewd a 
man to throw away the crown millions for humanita- 
rian purposes or speculatively on a patch of African 
territory. ' ' 

" Why should he not?" observed another young 
gentleman, in answer to the first speaker. "It is 
because he is shrewd that he invests in fruits and 



HAROLD, 



95 



ivory. He has just as good a right as we or the 
English to appropriate the territory." 

"Why did you not say better?" asked another, 
sarcastically. " What I want to know is, why 
bhould not Germany control Middle Africa as Great 
Britain controls Central India ; why do all these 
colonial schemes of promise turn out worthless ? You 
must be aware that the Emperor looks with distrust 
upon King Leopold, and thinks the Chancellor is to 
blame. And as for me, I think the Emperor is right." 

" Oh ! Leopold is up with the times. He believes 
wars of invasion and aggression are things of the 
past, and has gone in to conquer vast territory on a 
reform basis. That railroad of his will win the heart 
of every black-skinned savage in the interior. In a 
few years, my friends, Europe may be edified by the 
sight of an army of a million of d — d black niggers." 

The young Baron Stiltz was on his feet in an in- 
stant. 

"Pardon P\ he said, meaningly, " but I hope you 
will not use that term again." 

Every eye in the company, as if by magic, centred 
upon Harold Bright. A scene was expected, but the 
Experiment had not been paying attention. 

Observing himself an object of the guests' gaze, 
Harold immediately jumped at a conclusion. 

" What's up % Do they want me to make a speech ?" 

The speaker did not finish, and a murmur ran 
round the company which shortly afterward broke 
up. Niggers ! QvD est-ce que c*est que cela ? 

Pah ! Harold Bright could make nothing of it. 



CHAPTER XIY. 



" 0 Paradox ! Black is the badge of hell, 

The hue of dungeons and the scowl of night." 

— Shaeespeake. 

Harold Bright and Lis tutor spent some months 
abroad without having yet stirred beyond the bounda- 
ries of Europe. 

One day an American entered the corridor of the 
Hotel di Continent^ at Nice, and approached the 
landlord's office to transact some slight business. The 
host was engaged for the moment with another guest. 
With a polite gesture he begged the American to be 
seated. The latter acquiesced with equal politeness, 
but at that instant catching a glimpse of the third 
occupant of the apartment, he half rose in his chair, 
turned very pale, and directed a glance half of vexa- 
tion and half of anger at the proprietor of the Hotel 
di Continenti. The proprietor was at a loss to inter- 
pret the demeanor of his guest, and assuming that he 
w T as taken suddenly ill, or that something extraordinary 
had transpired, left Harold, to remark solicitously : 

" Pardon, sen or, but is there anything — ?" 

The American seemed too choked with anger for a 
moment to speak. 

" I thought — I understood you to say you were 
engaged !" he said, in a suppressed voice. 

The other answered : 



HAROLD. 



97 



u Dio grande i But so 1 was, sen or. " 
" Bat the guest !" 

" The guest ! The guest ! Ah, I perceive, you 
have not met ! You — " 

" Sir," exclaimed the American, u this is an in- 
sult ! You must be mad ! Explain yourself — imme- 
diately !" 

u But — but, senor, I have nothing to explain." 

" Order my baggage down immediately, sir !" ex- 
claimed the other. "I shall leave this house, sir !" 
Then he added : " By God ! this insult shall cost you 
dear !" 

"Insult?" gasped the bewildered host. " But, 
senor — will not senor explain ?" 

In answer the American deigned to point his finger 
at Harold. 

" Do you allow that to be a guest at this house and 
take precedence of a white man ?" he demanded — 
nay, almost shrieked. 

Harold, at the first intimation that he was con- 
cerned in this outburst, sprang to his feet and gave 
vent to a natural exclamation of indignation and sur- 
prise. 

A turbulent scene ensued, at the end of which the 
American demanded his account, duly followed his 
chattels to the street, and left the house. 

Poor Harold, stunned, uneasy, bewildered, ascended 
to his apartments, heedless of the landlord's apologies 
and the onlookers' mute looks of inquiry. 

* * * * * ^ 

An annual festival of the city of Nice is just about 
to begin. The streets are crowded with innumerable 



98 



HAROLD. 



shoppers and merrymakers, and the spirit of the ap- 
proaching carnival already infuses itself into every 
one who stirs abroad. As has been traditional in 
Nice for centuries, all is laughter, license, and liber- 
ality, and the lazzeroni not only have the incredible 
effrontery to grin into the countenance of the prince 
patron, but the usual haughty demeanor of the entire 
aristocracy becomes softened into an aspect of indul- 
gent and even jocular familiarity. Giggling maidens 
and children carry baskets of flowers through the 
narrow streets, or stand with them done up into fra- 
grant nosegays on half the street corners in Nice, and 
everybody buys. Englishmen and Americans have 
apparently taken the city by storm. They swarm in 
and out of the hotels and villas, and promenade the 
squares and plazas brave in tweed suits and formidable 
walking-sticks, no longer, as of yore, the combined 
objects of wonder and terror to the native population. 
They quiz the flower-girls ; they throw pennies to 
the street gamin. The ladies of the foreign in- 
vasion ride about in barouches, and marvel at those 
perennial Italian characteristics--sunshine, color, and 
dirt. 

Meantime, as these scenes are progressing without, 
the noise of a man pacing with heavy, erratic foot- 
steps might be heard on the hotel balcony. Up and 
down — ceaselessly — up and down — for more than an 
hour. Immediately after the strange scene in the 
office Harold had gone direct to his room D His brain 
was literally on fire, and he felt the chamber small 
even to suffocation. This was the first time in his 
life that he had received a gross oral insult, and 



HAROLD. 



99 



brought up as he had been, it would have been diffi- 
cult for any man to rally so directly as to be able to 
strike a blow or demand apology for the insult re- 
cei ved. 

In Harold's case, the indignity fell upon a mind 
already morbidly tortured by introspection. 

Since the incident which happened at dinner in Ber- 
lin he had begun what was destined to be a long and 
painful course of sensibility. He fancied that he 
caught at meanings in the conversation of acquaint- 
ances which had none other than that intended, and 
began to be painfully alive to the fact that something 
was being persistently hidden from him by his com- 
panion, Felix Schonberg, and a great wrong done him 
by Inigo Bright. The encounter with the American 
pointed to a confirmation of all that he had vaguely 
feared. He flung out of the room with his brain on 
fire, and, not daring to trust himself in the street, 
began pacing the long, narrow balcony. This struc- 
ture ran the entire width of the fagade. 

" You infernal black nigger !" the American had 
ejaculated in his wrath ; " what do you mean by 
addressing a white man ?" 

The brutal words were as yet incomprehensible in 
their more sinister significance. Nevertheless, they 
seemed to have burned themselves into his brain. He, 
at first, began by repeating them over in a dazed sort 
of way, until he had exhausted their superficial im- 
port. Then he began to grapple with speculation. 
The assault had been entirely unprovoked. The 
American had appeared thoroughly rational and civil 
until his eye had fallen upon himself. Then, with 



100 



HAROLD. 



unspeakable disgust and indignation limned on his 
features, lie had arisen and — 

Harold grew deathly sick at heart. The restless 
shadow of doubt which had thrown itself across his 
path even before he had left England now assumed 
horribly fantastic proportions. He had sometimes 
wondered if he were not some horrible monster, tracta- 
ble by education, but from which men shrunk with 
loathing ; that they did so, fearing contamination or 
doubting the stability of the change. If there was 
some ghastly mystery which hung over his life, he 
could not even in his calmer moments understand why 
Inigo Bright had caused him to leave England to 
suffer in spirit among strangers. To harden him 
through suffering ? Why, then, did he not reveal 
the whole truth to him and let him accustom himself 
to ignominy ? 

Harold had his share of pride, and he knew that 
whatever he was, or in whatever light men might hold 
him, he was at least their intellectual equal and more 
often their superior. Perhaps he was the result of 
some physiological phenomenon, brought about by 
some shameful sexual agency. Perhaps — but no, it 
could not be ! With his own vision he had seen men 
and women having black skins courted and apparently 
esteemed. 

u Whe?i you return," wrote Inigo Bright, " 1 will 
explain all that which appears to trouble you. In 
the mean time, he patient." 

God — be patient ! It was well enough to say ! 
Patient — under this terrible cloud of consciousness 
and awful feeling of isolation which sprang up about 



HAROLD. 



101 



him and entangled in a mesh his every step ! From 
what motive did Herr Felix clog his very thought 
and baffle all his attempts at self-enlightenment ? 
Looking back over his life, he became firmly convinced 
that Felix Schonberg had dogged and baffled him. 
He had done it kindly, smilingly, politely — what of 
that ? Could he not detect the veneer which made 
the truth appear all the grosser and more disrepu- 
table ? This action on Herr Felix's part was but the 
saccharine coating of a bitter pill. This pill he now 
choked in trying to swallow. Its bitterness sent a 
spasm of revulsion throughout the frame of the un- 
fortunate child of Chloe. 

Harold continued to pace with restless footsteps the 
piazza of the Hotel di Continenti. 

He began to gaze more and more at the crowds 
below, at the merry jostling and idle chatter of the 
throng. No, not a single black face in all those passing 
people. Black ! Black ! 

Who am 1 f What am 1 ? Whence do 1 come f 
Granted he came of a goodly race, why — why had 
everything which could shed any light on that race 
been denied him ? Did Aladdin meditate on his 
good fortune ? Did Abon Hassan, pale and sensi- 
tive, sit wrapped in speculation when he woke up and 
found himself Caliph of Bagdad ? Did Christopher 
Sly grow melancholy because he was no longer a 
tinker ? 

What were such fables to Harold Bright ? He 
wished to know the fatal truth as the moth thirsts 
for the light. The brutal language of the American 
seemed to make the whole world his insulters. 



102 



HAROLD. 



Absorbed in this merciless train of thought, Harold 
had failed to notice the small group which began gather- 
ing on a distant end of the balcony. It comprised mostly 
American ladies, as Harold could readily divine from 
their dress and manner. 

Vaguely fearing some other maddening scene, he 
hastily repaired to his room. The one terrible neces- 
sity which had been present in his mind for months 
was confronting him at that moment. Herr Felix 
must throw off his pompous manner, his affectation 
of duty, and talk to him, man to man. From Felix 
he must have the truth, even at the risk of disobeying 
the unjust injunctions of the friend whom he had now 
begun to hate — to regard as his worst enemy. 

"Now — now I am calm," he soliloquized. "If 
I am un sensitif I have been made so by his train- 
ing, by his conduct toward me. Perhaps I might 
have continued to live and enjoy myself, without a 
care for the causes and conditions of my existence, 
but it shall end — now ! now ! now ! If I am a 
human hybrid, I swear to know it from his lips. If I 
own a race or nation, to that race or nation I shall go ! 

" God in Heaven pity me ! If I am gifted with a soul 
or am worthy of Thy handiwork, lend me aid. If I am 
not of Thy making, if my blackness is a brand more 
horrible than Cain's, I pray — I pray that Thou wilt take 
my life and wilt crush me before I go mad among the 
beasts ! But the tkuth ! I will have the truth /" 



CHAPTER XV. 

" Fie, treacherous hue ! that will betray with blushing 
The close enacts and counsels of the heart ! 
Here's a lad framed of another leer." 

— Titus Andronicus. 

It was right here that the observer might locate the 
fatal defect in the Experimentist's dogma. If re- 
finement of intellect is not innate, brawn is. To 
every infant born into the world a certain proportion 
of vitality is allotted, and the standard may never be 
raised. No organically puny child may be developed 
by any physiological process into a candidate for the 
prize-ring. One might as well say that the base-born 
colt can ever be trained to compete with and vanquish 
on the track the blooded race stallion. Brawn, in a 
word, is an inherent quality. 

Robust vitalities, then, require lusty contact with 
the world. If the son of Chloe had been possessed of 
some way of dissipating his nerve force, of bruising 
his energies upon an occupation, he might still have 
retained his lightness of temperament. On ne fait 
rien, observes the philosopher, et on sefait movhide. 

And one of the first things that occurs to the Ex- 
perimentalist, as he now looks back over the field of 
his exploit, is that of the various races of men, the 
two most opposite to each other, Caucasian and 
Ethiopian, appear to possess the least capacity for 



104 



HABOLD. 



becoming morbid. If Harold, the Ethiop, had beea 
born and bred among his fellows, even upon as high 
an intellectual plane as he had been bred, he would 
still have retained all that isolation of caste was now 
taking away. For the smile of the black is as pro- 
verbial as summer, and its fame extends over the uni- 
verse. To show how far Harold had edged away 
from the common impulses of his kind, two years had 
elapsed in travel, and the slightest pretension to a smile 
now gave the black youth pain. 

If Herr Felix had not been so engrossed in his 
observations and his books, he might at this juncture 
have seen something to give him a twinge of re- 
morse. But the fact of the matter was, Herr Felix 
was engrossed in his books and observations, and, 
indeed, had of late carried himself with rather a high 
hand toward his charge. Ordinarily Harold would 
have mildly resented this change of demeanor, even 
in the face of the long and intimate relationship exist- 
ing between the two. Herr Felix seemed a foster- 
father more than anything else. 

Harold just now had no spirit to utter a single word 
of protest, but it nevertheless had seemed to him for 
some months as if Herr Felix had a secret and terri- 
ble rod in his keeping with which to smite him. He 
fancied his grim tutor knew of truths, held in abey- 
ance only because no opportune moment appeared in 
which to cast them with damning might into his face. 
Daily Harold had grown to fear Herr Felix. 

But to-day all this was past. 

To-day, in his room, locked and bolted from within, 
he no longer felt the breath of fear. Harold mocked 



HAROLD, 



105 



at hesitancy. With temples that throbbed pitilessly 
he brooded over the everlasting secret of his birth 
and origin, the wornout plaything and relaxation of 
Inigo Bright. He went over all the old maddening 
conjectures until he felt the process maddening. 
Then Harold clapped on his hat and descended to 
the street. 

On the sidewalk Harold encountered his tutor. 
Herr Felix was comfortably wrapped in an opera 
cloak, chatting with a couple of acquaintances. Sev- 
eral Frenchmen sat at tables sipping wine and listening 
to the music discoursed by a band stationed in the 
colonnade. 

Herr Felix's tone was anything but respectful. It 
was not even polite. 

" So, so!" he cried, sharply; "I thought you 
were upstairs and ill !" 

" It was too close, and I decided to walk a little," 
replied Harold. 

" But," pursued the tutor, in a peevish tone. " I 
am going to the opera." 

" Then I hope you will enjoy it, sir." Harold took 
two paces forward. 

" Harold, you must retire," called the tutor. u I 
went out because you assured me you were ill and did 
not intend leaving your room. How is this, sir ?" 

There was something about Herr Schonberg to- 
night that cut and angered the pupil. It may either 
have been in his tone or in his manner, or both. 

" Come upstairs, 3 ' said Harold, suddenly, yet re- 
spectfully. " Come upstairs, Herr Felix ; I shall want 
you but a moment, perhaps." 



106 



HAROLD. 



Herr Schonberg excused himself to his companions 
with no very good grace, and followed his charge as 
he ascended the hotel stairs. The two entered the 
apartment — Harold's apartment at Is ice — which 
neither were likely soon to forget. 

"Well?" began the tutor. 

Harold closed the door carefully, locked it from 
within, and placed the key in his pocket. Felix 
Schonberg sent one glance at Harold's eye and then 
quailed like a hunter, powerless before his intended 
prey. 

" What — what does this mean ?" he gasped. 

"Sit down," replied Harold, in a low, repressed 
voice. "1 have much to say to you, sir — much to 
ask you." 

Then it was Herr Felix bounded to his feet as if 
shot. 

"'Ask me? Ask me? Explain your conduct at 
once, Harold. Have I not always done my duty by 
you ? Have I not always been kind and attentive 
since you were a child ? Tou forget yourself. I 
will trouble you to open that door — immediately." 

The tutor was a well-built man. In his younger 
days he had been a capital fencer, an expert boxer, 
and a horseman of particular brilliancy, but he was no 
match for Harold Bright if a blow was to be struck. 
The threatening attitude of the tutor, his growing 
excitement, and his pupil's stubbornness, all betokened 
a collision of authority. Harold had promised Inigo 
Bright to place himself entirely subordinate to his 
tutor for three years. Herr Felix attempted to call 
Harold to what he deemed a sense of duty. 



HAROLD. 



107 



" Stop ! Not another word !" interrupted Harold. 
" We cannot afford to lose time on petty recrimina- 
tions. You must answer everything that I put to you. 
at once. Do you hear me ?" 

"If I decline ?" 

" Then, by the living God above us, 1 will not be 
responsible for what 1 do !" 

The look, the gesture, the tones of Harold's voice 
were dramatic to a degree. Felix Schonberg turned 
a full shade paler. 

" What do you wish to know ? I was not aware 
that there was anything in my power to tell you that 
would call for such violence as this." 

" Pardon, Herr Schonberg," said Harold ; " 1 am 
excited, and your manner did not seem wholly 
friendly. Perhaps I did wrong in locking the door. 
See, I will unlock it. I will deal openly with you, 
but you must deal openly and fairly with me. First, 
who am I ?" 

Herr Felix became profoundly moved. He fal- 
tered, rolled his eyes about the room, and clenched his 
thighs with the palms of his hands. 

" Tell me that which has been always concealed 
from me. Were my parents black ? " 

Herr Felix faced the alternative. He saw nothing 
in the answer he might give which would offend his 
patron. On the contrary, the question seemed foolish 
and inane. 

" Your father and mother were both as yourself. 
I don't see what you are coming at. I was not aware 
that you ever troubled yourself on this account. 
There are many races on the globe — red, yellow, and 



108 



HAROLD, 



brown as well, and I was not aware that any of them 
ever sprang from white parentage." 

Herr Felix's manner was now cold and taunting. 
He was much more at ease. 

k ' Then, why," pursued Harold — " why have I 
never been informed about the race from which 1 
sprang ?" 

" Informed — informed ?" repeated Herr Felix, va- 
cantly. He was busy resolving a suitable reply. 

" Do not mock me !" exclaimed Harold, with pas- 
sion. 

He then related to Herr Schonberg the story of 
his encounter with the American. 

" What do his words mean ? Why did he shrink 
from me ? Why did she shrink from me ? My 
God ! Why do you not speak ? Speak and tell me 
why everybody is white and only I am black ? Where 
are my people ? Why can I not go to them, mingle 
with them, live with them ? Something tells me that 
I am out of place. I yearn for the companionship 
of blood. Where are my brothers and sisters ?" 

Felix Schonberg retreated before the towering fig- 
ure of Harold. The youth's appeal began fiercely, it 
ended with a frightful wail. 

" Where are my brothers and sisters ?" 

Harold Bright seemed to plead before some stern, 
relentless tribunal for the return of the slaughtered 
dead. His hands moved convulsively and his whole 
frame betrayed the utmost excitement. Felix Schon- 
berg was loath to say anything which would add fuel 
to his companion's passion. 

" Speak ! Speak !" shrieked Harold. 



HAROLD. 



109 



Felix found himself between two fires. While he 
was meditating thus, Harold, now in the height of his 
frenzy, struck him a slight blow. The tutor dared 
not return it. With white face and trembling frame 
he screamed loudly for help. 

Harold ran from the room. 

It seemed to him as if he had committed some 
deadly crime. The slightness of the blow went un- 
considered. Felix Schonberg had been his tutor and 
companion from childhood, and the remorse he felt 
for the action could be likened to nothing so much as 
the remorse of a murderer who has smitten down a 
fellow-being. 

When, repentant, he returned to the room, Herr 
Schonberg was gone. Where he had gone it was 
beyond Harold's reason to even surmise. To suppose 
for an instant, after what had passed between the two 
men, that Felix had carried out his original intention 
and gone to the opera seemed to him impossible. 

As a matter of fact, Herr Felix had seen Harold on 
the balcony, and properly guessing that he would be 
seized with repentance for his action, had deemed it 
best to remain away and leave the youth to himself 
for the remainder of the night. Unfortunately Har- 
old's experience of life had been too mild and peace- 
ful for him not to put an exaggerated importance 
upon the assault. His lively imagination, heated by } 
the day's indignity, subjected him to such torment 
that he made his mind up to return to England im- 
mediately. He would face Inigo Bright's displeasure 
rather than stay abroad another day. 

Then came the thought of Mabel Yere, and with it 



110 



HAROLD. 



a train of morbid recollections, morbid hopes, and 
morbid fears. The influence of the American was 
still upon him, and without knowing what he did, 
Harold Bright decided that he would die before he 
would go back to London and Inigo Bright. 

After all, was life worth living since Felix had so 
resolutely determined to tell him nothing concerning 
his birth and country ? With all his youth and health 
and vigor, such a thought made him revolt from it. 
"Why not escape from it all and fly to America ? 
Harold seized at the idea with flushed face and 
throbbing temples. America ! America ! His race 
lived there ! There were black men in America ! If 
they were oppressed, he could succor them. Though 
they were ground down, he could at least suffer among 
his own. 

Long before midnight the bird had flown. His 
plans were hasty, crude, and incomplete. His object 
was simply flight. All he knew was that he had 
enough money to pay his passage to America, and 
further than that he knew and cared nothing. The 
ticket agent at the Nice railway station was consider- 
ably startled at the sight of a well-dressed negro carry- 
ing a Gladstone bag, who inquired when the train for 
the north would arrive in pure English, and who 
bought a ticket for Havre. By consulting time tables 
and a copy of Galignani, Harold found that he could 
arrive in Havre four hours before a steamer would sail 
for New York. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



" A toiling city thick with crowds 
Then to his vision rose." 

— Melbourne. 

It was a dull, cold morning. 

A haze of autumn sleet was slanting on the great 
pier. Gangs of laborers ran about with ropes and 
planks. Officers were shouting, luggage was being 
tossed about, customs men were swearing, and two 
or three blue-coated guardians of the peace were hold- 
ing in check a mob composed of the friends and rela- 
tives of the steamer's passengers. For their part, in- 
cessant handkerchief-shaking, eye-wiping, and brow- 
mopping. It was plain that everybody was literally 
on the tiptoe of expectation. A knot of handsomely 
attired women seemed to be dying of anxiety lest some 
husband, brother, friend, or lover should fail to recog- 
nize them among the throng. A group of actors 
elbowed their way to be the first to shake hands with 
a famous brother comedian who had won laurels 
abroad. Six tired-looking newspaper reporters stood 
inside the hallowed ground. 

At this interesting juncture some one shouts : 

" Heave her off, there !" 

This is closely followed by a 

" Haul her up, there !" 

Whereupon the gang-planks are thrown open, and 



112 



HAROLD. 



over these tiny bridges the tide of humanity, pent up 
for a whole week and a half, swarms upon the pier. 
Faces are recognized, and if they are not handker- 
chiefs are waved with increasing vigor and despera- 
tion. This politician and that savant are recognized. 
The reporters rush eagerly forward to their prey. 

By and by all are out. The bowels of the great 
ship are emptied of human freight. They certainly 
must be emptied. 

But, no ! Down the slender tendon which binds 
the huge marine monster to its native soil ad- 
vances a well-knit, self-possessed figure. His face 
is black, but he does not seem an ordinary negro. 
Self-possessed, his every motion betrays complete 
mastery and determined resolve. He is dressed 
plainly, yet perfectly. In his right hand he bears a 
heavy Gladstone as if it were a toy. 

The painfully acute representatives of a great and 
searching press start forward with all the enthusiasm 
of their craft. 

The illustrious pugilistic light-weight champion of 
Tuppenny Corners is neglected. 

Harold Bright does not try to restrain a smile — the 
first he has known for weeks. Not altogether a stranger 
to this experience, he has determined to say nothing. 
The inquisitiveness of the scribes redoubles each mo- 
ment, but Harold only smiles. 

The Isew York newspapers consequently announce 
the following morning that a distinguished Haytian — 
Liberian — Abyssinian diplomat — scholar — traveller 
has landed on American shores. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



•* Great is the justice of the "white man — 
Greater is the power of a lie." 

— E. Kipling. 

Armed with such slight information as he had ac- 
quired from the stranger at the dock in Havre, Harold 
engaged a vehicle and drove directly to the Manhattan 
Hotel. The time in the vehicle he employed in gazing 
out of the windows at the buildings and the crowds. 
Hurried along in this lively manner, his spirits, not 
unnaturally, rose at the prospect of being loosed from 
the thraldom of thought. For the first time in many 
months he experienced a pleasant and real buoyancy. 
He felt that, given the opportunity, he could set 
hands and brain to work in his new sphere with a 
will. Thoroughly confident of himself in this way, 
he reached the hotel and alighted from the cab. 
When he paid the driver, the action recalled him at 
once and with something of a shock to the paltry 
state of his finances. Just at present, however, there 
was little time for pondering. As he entered the 
hotel, with its long corridor filled with loungers and 
lighted with gas jets even in the daytime, an Irish 
porter immediately laid hold of his valise, without 
even the preliminary of setting eyes upon its owner. 
Harold walked briskly up to the clerk's desk without 
attracting very much attention and demanded a room. 



114 



HAKOLD. 



" I shall want to occupy it at once, if you please," 
he added, in a decided sort of way. 

The clerk stared as if he had not heard aright or 
could scarcely credit his senses. Harold cast one 
glance upon him. He felt his heart sink. It re- 
minded him so much of the glance of General Louis 
Legarde. 

a How's that?" asked the clerk, laying down his 
pen and then taking it up again. 
Harold repeated his request. 

At this interesting juncture a slim, reddish-haired 
young man, wearing eye-glasses, leaned over the 
counter and whispered something in the clerk's ear. 
The clerk laid down his pen again and stared. Hav- 
ing done this for the space of a full half minute, 
he retreated some distance behind the glass door 
of a compartment labelled " Manager's Office,*' 
from whence shortly issued a stout, portly gentle- 
man, who attended to Harold's case in very short 
order. 

66 I'm extremely sorry — extremely sorry, indeed," 
he explained, suavely, <; but the house is full. Yes ; 
you see, the house is full. Of coarse," he added, 
" there ara three or four rooms, but they are reserved 
for old patrons, whom we are expecting every mo- 
ment." 

"Whereupon the manager smiled, nodded, rubbed 
his hands, and retreated. Two or three guests smiled, 
nodded, and winked at his retreating figure. Appar- 
ently they enjoyed this colloquy immensely. Har- 
old's chagrin left him courage but wherewith to ask : 

" Can you, then, direct me to a hotel ?" 



HAKOLD. 



115 



The clerk hesitated. Then a happy thought struck 
him. 

u Try a few doors further up," he said. 

4£ % 

It was a bitter experience. 

Five hotels in quick succession Harold entered and 
retreated from with no better success. Once or twice 
he got ugly looks that were yet less insulting than the 
lies — lies accompanied by satirical blandness and a 
smile. He saw other strangers enter and register on 
the hotel's book in an offhand way, and knew that 
the functionaries spoke no truth to him. But what 
could he do ? 

A stranger in a great city must first have food and 
lodging ; it is his first step toward gaining a foothold. 
Harold was black, and was denied that. What would 
the sensible man and present reader do under such 
circumstances ? People eyed him askance on the 
street, and not a few stared at him with a broad grin 
traced upon their faces. 

Harold had left his satchel at the hotel he had first en- 
tered. In retracing his steps over the crowded, muddy 
thoroughfare, he came across a little park. In it were a 
series of wooden benches, and upon one of these the 
son of Chloe seated himself and sunk his head heavily 
upon his upraised palms. The terrible despair of 
that moment was relieved by nothing in past — or 
future. All his remembered joys had sickened and 
died on his hands, and his cup of bitterness was full. 
Not a single ray of hope illumined the gloom of that 
awful moment ! 

But in the midst of a mute appeal to Providence 



116 



HAROLD. 



for succor, he chanced to raise his eyes, and lo ! the 
figure of a stalwart negro as black as himself appeared 
through the trees lining the path. He was rapidly 
approaching, and had a good-sized paper parcel tucked 
under each arm. Harold's first impulse was to dart 
forward, explain the situation, and beg for the man's 
assistance. Surely one of his own color would not* 
refuse him. 2STor was he mistaken. But his nervous 
haste and extreme excitability of countenance nearly 
sent the other negro into convulsions. He dropped 
one of his packages, and appeared strongly in favor of 
taking to his heels. 

" Yo 3 mos 3 scared me to death, " he explained, 
i; comin at me like that ! Ef yo'll come with me, 
Mister L'Heureux '11 be right pleased to see yon.' 3 

Harold cheerfully accepted his offer, and together 
they crossed the park. 

:% I s'pose yo' won't mind waitin' after I shows yo' 
the place, will yo' V' observed the negro, whose 
name was Cassias White ; " believe Mister L'Heu- 
renx ain't liable to come home befo' five, and it ain't 
only three now." 

Harold started and took out his watch, which his 
companion eyed admiringly. 

" Good God ! I can't believe it ! I must have 
been sitting in that park for hours !'' 

Such moments of despair rarely come but once in a 
human lifetime. It is a stupor that overwhelms time 
itself as it overwhelmed Harold, so that the hours fled 
by unheeded. Even now, in the company of Cassius, 
he merely remembered boarding a yellow-painted 
caravan, of answering some questions which his com- 



HAROLD. 



117 



panion quite respectfully put to him ; he remembered 
alighting before a rather cheerful house of red brick ; 
he remembered being greeted by a dark-skinned 
woman, of being very sleepy, and of being shown to 
a room by a man whose hand he clasped. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



" 'The curse has come upon me,' cried the Lady of Shalott." 

This L'Heureux turned out to be a slender, well- 
proportioned man of thirty, whose clear, saddle- 
colored skin was not his least attraction. He had a 
countenance which was prepossessing, earnest, and 
sincere, and his bearing closely resembled that of a 
gentleman. 

L'Heureux took Bright's arm cordially the next 
morning and led him in to breakfast, without making 
any very personal inquiries concerning his guest's 
presence in the family. For his part, during the 
progress of the meal, Harold learned that his host 
was an editor and a philanthropist. When the repast 
was concluded (and Harold ate bat little), L'Heureux 
led the way to the office of the newspaper published 
in the interests of his race, of which he was proprietor. 

6 ' It is so much better to walk on a cold morning 
like this," he observed, briskly, as they passed well 
into Broadway. " I find it invariably puts me into a 
better frame of mind. I can also write a great deal 
better." 

Harold felt his spirits returning with the walk. 

" Tour buildings are very fine," he remarked, ad- 
miringly, of the great iron and marble fagades which 
line the greatest thoroughfare in the world. The two 



HAROLD. 



119 



cnatted in commonplace fashion until City Hall Square 
was reached, and L'Heureux led his companion 
across. 

Harold felt again a sensation of pleasure stealing 
over him for the second time since his landing. The 
duties and accountabilities of life had never seemed 
so real as when now he gazed upon the hurry and 
scurry and bustle ot mankind, and felt that he, too, 
might in this new world add his own zephyr to the 
whirlwind of occupation and progress. Wending 
their way through crowded Nassau Street, the editor 
of the Freeman suddenly wheeled down a side thor- 
oughfare and brought up before a low brick building 
covered with white paint, one of the few remaining 
sometime aristocratic mansions of a departed century. 
L'Heureux looked Harold in the face and smiled. 
" There we are," he said ; " this is my fortress. Not 
very pretentious, but still, if you take it all round, a 
genuine marvel." 

So saying, he again took his companion's arm and 
mounted two pairs of dark, dingy stairs. When near 
the top a door with a glazed glass window was hastily 
thrown open, and a black youth called out : 

" Good-morning, Mr. L'Heureux. We are in a 
hole again. Neither of the compositors has put in 
an appearance !" 

" Yery well, Norman. Let me introduce my assist- 
ant — Norman Fletcher, Mr. Bright." 

The young men shook hands warmly. Fletcher 
was many shades of complexion lighter than Harold 
and at least two years younger. 

" Now what is this?" resumed L'Heureux, when 



120 



HAROLD, 



all three had taKen chairs. " No printers again ? It 
was that turkey raffle, Norman, depend upon it." 

L'Heureux turned to Bright and explained how his 
assistants, who were usually employed in type-setting 
for the paper, were addicted to periodical absences 
for two days at a stretch. u This is one of the 
greatest annoyances I meet with," he said, with no 
trace of annoyance, however, either in face or man- 
ner. " No printers, no paper. That is the alterna- 
tive in the greatest newspaper office in the world. 
But we, being the smallest, perhaps, are not bound by 
any such rules. We are often obliged to be both 
printers and editors. Come, Norman, how many 
columns do we lack ?' ' 

" Seven, and we go to press to-morrow." 

" Have we the leaders up ?" 

" Yes, sir — that is, 1 think so. Here are a number 
of clippings to be set." 

L'Heureux ran his eye over the proofs. 

" Let me see, ' The Blair Bill,' ' Southern Senators 
and Northern Sentiment,' 6 Mr. Douglass's Error,' 
' An Appeal to the Bayonet ' — why, that is only four. 
We must have six at least." 

" There is the Mahone incident." 

" No ; 1 have promised not to allude to that further. 
What else ?" 

Norman picked over a pile of exchanges. 

" Mr. Marsh dropped in this morning to explain 
about the colored organization in the Ninth Ward. 
He says the Freeman ought to make a retraction." 

" Marsh is an idiot, a 6 no-account.' Such colored 
organizations as his are bound to retard progress in- 



HAROLD. 



121 



stead of promoting it. Every nigger with a little 
schooling got late in. life wants to get up clubs and 
societies. If Marsh thinks I am wrong, let him prove 
it. I won't retract a word." 

L'Heureux had by this time doffed his coat and 
rolled up his sleeves preparatory to work. During 
the above outburst he seemed to get a little warmed 
up, and for the moment forgot Bright's presence. 

fcC I can't help getting angered at these local politi- 
cians," he said. " You will learn about them to your 
sorrow, Mr. Bright. They spoil all our better plans. 
They organize when organization will only injure us. 
Negro politics have no place in the North, except to 
excite unjust prejudice." 

To Harold this talk seemed like so much jargon ; 
he was engaged in minutely observing the walls and 
furnishings of the place. The office consisted of two 
low-studded rooms adjoining each other, one of these 
being used as the composing and press room. An 
old-fashioned roller printing-press stood in one corner. 
The other apartment, the one in which he sat, was 
rather cosey- looking, plenty of heat being diffused 
throughout from a stove placed in nearly the centre. 

A small but generously filled bookcase was fastened 
to the wall beside the editorial desk. Another and 
smaller desk stood in another corner near the window, 
of which latter conveniences there were two in either 
apartment. The walls were liberally covered with 
frames. Many contained portraits of illustrious men 
connected with the abolition of slavery — those, for in- 
stance, of Lincoln and Sumner and Phillips ; but 
the most striking objects were printed placards in 



122 



HAROLD. 



large display type, which could be read at the utmost 
distance to which an occupant of the chamber could 
recede. L'Heureux explained : 

" That, I should tell you, is an extract from Mrs. 
Stowe's ' Uncle Tom's Cabin.' Those are the closing 
words of President Lincoln's Gettysburg speech. Oh, 
you have heard that ! Here is the Fifteenth Amend- 
ment entire. Over there I hang up what I call my 
inspirations. They, too, are mottoes. Can you read 
them?" 

Harold Bright read them. Then he turned and 
looked L'Heureux straight in the eye for a full min- 
ute. So intense was the glare, that it seemed as if he 
were about to spring and pin him down to the floor. 
L'Heureux returned his gaze, silent, but inwardly 
marvelling. The visitor first spoke, saying with en- 
forced calmness : 

" 1 told you but little last night, L'Heureux ; per- 
haps what I have yet to tell may astonish you beyond 
your — yes, even my own belief. But tell me — I am 
ignorant as a child — do you hold such doctrines as that 
true ?" 

Intelligence instantly spread itself over the features 
of L'Heureux. The other was pointing wildly to a 
great placard on the wall. 

"The great truth," it ran, "that the negro is not equal to 

THE WHITE MAN ; THAT SLAVERY, SUBORDINATION TO THE SUPERIOR 
RACE, IS HIS NATURAL AND NORMAL CONDITION. THE NEGRO BY NATURE 
OR BY THE CURSE OF CANAAN IS FITTED FOR THAT POSITION WHICH HE 
OCCUPIES IN OUR SYSTEM, AND BY EXPERIENCE WE ENOW THAT IT IS 
BEST NOT ONLY FOR THE SUPERIOR, BUT FOR THE INFERIOR RACE THAT 
IT SHOULD BE SO. It IS, INDEED, IN CONFORMITY WITH THE ORDINANCE 

of the Creator. Alexander H. Stephens." 



HAROLD. 



123 



" Do yon mean to tell me those sentiments are new 
to you !" exclaimed the editor of the Freeman. He 
was silent for a moment. "It is not strange," he 
added. " You are a European. But, tell me, have 
you read nothing of our race wars, our race discus- 
sions, our race polemics ?" 

" So little, that I traversed the wide Atlantic to 
learn. All my knowledge of my caste is instinct. 
I have been born and bred in a dense mist. Every 
road has been opened to me but that leading to my 
origin and my — color." 

L'Heureux was so amazed that he forgot to reply. 
Harold's eyes suddenly filled with tears. 

" It seems strange, does it not ? That is because 
I am educated and drilled in the ways of the polite 
world. I fear I know but little of the real world. 
But," he said, with an effort, "you have not an- 
swered me." 

" I'm afraid 1 can't now. You would not under- 
stand. The sentiment you see on that wall inspires 
me, because it tells me what my race and yours has 
yet to perform before it can brand its distinguished 
author an ineffable liar." 

It was L'Heureux's turn to be moved. He set his 
teeth closely together for a moment. Quickly collect- 
ing himself, however, he begged his companion to 
divert himself while he busied himself at the printer's 
case. 

Norman Fletcher, who had gone out during 
colloquy, returned now with an armful of letters and 
newspapers, which he disposed in order on the desk, 
and forthwith withdrew, also to the adjoining room. 



124 



HAROLD. 



Harold, thus left to his own devices, took down a 
number of volumes from the book-shelf at his elbow 
and skimmed them over with nervous curiosity. Sev- 
eral hours passed while he was thus engaged be- 
fore L'Heureux professed himself at leisure. This 
he did as the mighty bell in the adjacent tower of 
Trinity Church struck one, upon which both men 
descended for lunch. The editor of the Freeman in- 
formed Harold that he usually lunched at a little Ger- 
man restaurant around the corner, where they could 
sit and chat unobserved. Bright found it a rather 
pleasant, snug place, situate in a cellar, above which 
rose a massy pile of buildings. The restaurant was 
resorted to by clerks and the needier class of profes- 
sional men. Here, after they had been comfortably 
seated and partaken of a light luncheon, both being 
too much occupied to have an appetite, the son 
of Chloe told his curious history. Throughout the 
narration he maintained a quiet dignity and refine- 
ment of manner that astonished L'Heureux, even 
after he had become undoubted master of the causes 
which produced it. When it was all through there 
was silence between them for several minutes. 

" What did you write your benefactor?" asked 
L'Heureux. 

" This," and Harold repeated almost word for 
word that which he had posted in the heat of his 
emotion at Havre. "I know lean trust you," he 
said to L'Heureux. 

" You can, you can," reiterated the other, grasping 
Bright's hand and holding it with an almost fatherly 
affection. " Perhaps it is better not to seek to un- 



HAROLD. 



125 



ravel the mystery of the man who has made you just 
what you are ; but I fancy it is plain even now to 
both of us. Under the mask of some mortal caprice, 
God Almighty has snatched one from the ranks of 
our kind to mix, mingle, and enjoy with the master 
race. You are surely destined to some great good to 
our race. Unwittingly you have imbibed every feel- 
ing, every sensation, every noblest sentiment which 
seventeen centuries of domination have bequeathed to 
the white man ; consequently you are the equal of 
any Caucasian that breathes." 

u But is that — is that remarkable °" 

L'Heureux paused a moment. 

" Yes ; you are the first negro in all the billions 
of souls included in the whole of modern civilization 
to enjoy the atmosphere and the privileges of the 
white man !" 

It would be difficult to convey the force and earnest- 
ness with which the speaker uttered these words. 

" As for me," he said, u I can tell my story in a 
few words. My grandfather was a French slave trans- 
ported to the French colonial possessions. He was 
killed early in the insurrection of 1812, when my 
father was a child in arms. When he grew older he 
shipped as a marine on board a man-of-war, and was 
captured by the English and sold to a broker in cotton 
down in Charleston. The broker made him his body 
servant and treated him kindly for twenty years. Dur- 
ing this time he married and 1 was born. Then the 
master died. My father was seized by a planter for 
a pretended debt, and was made to work as a common 
laborer in the rice fields. Although my mother was 



126 



HAROLD. 



a free woman, she was not permitted even to see him. 
One day he wrote my mother a letter to leave at once 
for the North, as he intended to escape. But he was 
caught out at sea in an open boat and shot dead 
while swimming a way from his pursuers." 

" And all this impossible?" gasped Harold. He 
had been drinking in every syllable of UHeureux's 
narrative. 

The latter smiled bitterly. " I forgot. You are 
positively ignorant of the beauties of race slavery. But 
this is a merciful instance. Taken all in all, the lives 
of both my progenitors were far above the ordinary 
standard of negro happiness." 

During the next few days Harold Bright lived in a 
vague, unreal world. He appeared scarcely to think. 
He dared not trust himself even in thought. He could 
only deem it, in a vague sort of way, some horrible 
dream from which he would soon awaken. He went 
through the introduction to others of his own race 
half -unconscious of what he said or did. L'Heureux 
was only too happy to befriend him. He used to 
argue that a generous Providence had put it in his 
power to do so. He thought he knew and appreci- 
ated the full extent of Harold's sufferings. He felt, 
too, that it would be but temporary, and when he re- 
covered his wonted vigor of mind Gorman Fletcher 
would have returned to college, and the cause of the 
black man would find a unique and fitting champion in 
Harold through the columns of the paper. Colored 
men read and reasoned more now. The colored vote 
was gaining in independence with every year. The 



HAROLD. 



127 



black man's wrongs were to be righted ; new and more 
glaring injustices appeared. The process of self -edu- 
cation was bringing its results. Everything pointed 
to a future potency for the Freeman of which, in his 
most sanguine moments, when he began it, L'Heureux 
had scarcely dreamed. 

And so the son of black Chloe lived and moved and 
had his being for weeks in a sort of trance. His 
chamber overlooked the street, and at its window he 
sat and mused many a night when L'Heureux be- 
lieved him asleep. He could no more have closed his 
eyes than he could have altered the color of his skin. 

Christmas time came — those days in which he was 
wont to make merry in the old manor at Dubersly — - 
to find L'Heureux and his wife talking him with 
might and main into a more cheerful and rational 
frame of mind. 

Sarah L'Heureux w T as an intelligent negress, some 
years younger than her husband. She was ambitious, 
attractive in her manner, and at times even of a satirical 
wit. Her figure was good and her face was certainly not 
un pleasing. This woman's father was a New Orleans 
Creole, who had married a full-blooded Ethiopian girl, 
paying for her ransom along with the wedding fee. 
Mrs. L'Heureux was looked up to, therefore, as a 
social leader among the better classes of the blacks of 
New York. She had a small fortune of thirty or 
forty thousand dollars in her own right, and her hus- 
band's property was not inconsiderable. During the 
winter season a great many worthy and even distin- 
guished men and women of their own race graced the 
L'Heureux abode. Sarah L'Heureux gave balls and 



128 



HAROLD. 



parties, at which black members of Congress had been 
known to figure. And this was not all. The visitors 
to the house in Tyler Street were not all branded with 
the curse of Canaan. Their faces were not all of a 
Cimmerian hue. Some of them were politicians and 
stood high in public esteem. They did not deem it 
any infringement of those iron-clad rules of caste, • 
which had been drawn up from time immemorial, to 
cater to the thousands of suffrages, which these, their 
inferiors, represented. L'Heureux was a powerful 
factor, they knew, and L'Heureux found it agreeable 
not to receive their advances with disdain. 

"It is true," said he, on one occasion, u we wear 
our blackness on our faces, but it is a better way than 
theirs, who wear it in their hearts." 

The social principle recognized by the L'Heureux 
was simple. They and their friends were fain to let 
the two races go their respective ways. There was to 
be no truckling on the one hand, no patronage on the 
other. The shade of caste color nearest perfection 
was the somberest. Miss Troup, who was an octoroon, 
did not take precedence over Miss Burton, whose com- 
plexion was a jet and glossy ebony. As few standards 
of taste as possible obtained from the whites were 
tolerated. 

But it must not be supposed from this that there 
were no degrees of castes within a caste. The inhabi- 
tants of Ludlow Street were as much elevated above 
the heads of the denizens of Thompson Street as the s 
citizen of Walker Alley and the Chelsea Flats was 
below the resident of Anne Terrace or the purlieus of 
Oxley Square. As for the L'Heureux mansion, it 



HAROLD. 



129 



was besought by the whole negro social organiza- 
tion. 

L'Heureux and his wife had dipped pretty deep 
into the lore of their recent masters, but not enough 
to make them affect a scorn of religion. Both were 
highly devout, and members of a flourishing African 
Episcopal congregation. On this particular Christmas 
Eve they had made great preparations for observing 
the day with gladness and propriety. 

Harold watched these preparations with a strange 
and wistful sadness in his heart. The bits of ever- 
green fastened about the walls recalled to him the 
days when he had the ignorant and presumptuous folly 
to believe himself the equal of Arthur Danthorne and 
Robert Langley and other of his youthful playmates. 
But those days were gone. It behooved him now to 
cast the dead and dried leaves of the past to the four 
winds and seek for fresh, new blossoms in a future 
career. He had gathered the old posies with pride in 
his heart. He had been led to believe they would 
last forever. The man who had willed all this igno- 
rance for him was a great and dear friend, whom he 
now had thrown off and alienated. The shock of 
knowledge, of course, was great. It is no wonder he 
suffered from it. It is not hard to fancy a man 
waking up after a night of pleasant dreams to find 
both legs severed from his body. Or for the ruler of a 
kingdom suddenly to make the discovery that he was 
nothing, after all, but a hod-carrier. But the cripple 
must soon become accustomed to his maimed state. 
The hod-carrier must get to his work early in the day, 
just like the other hod- carriers. And he might yet 



130 



HAROLD. 



be a great, distinctive carrier of hods. A kingly hod- 
carrier is yet a distinction worth living for. How 
much better than one of a dozen hod- carrier kings, who 
manage to pitiably disfigure the pages of history ! 

66 We have invited a great many people to-morrow, 
and you really should be in good spirits and help us 
entertain them. 5 ' 

Harold thought this a small favor in return for all 
those he had received. He replied to his hostess as 
gallantly as if she had been Mme. Salecy herself and 
he in her spacious salon. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



n No face is fair that is not full so black." 

— Shakespeabe. 

By nine o'clock the next evening the house was full 
of the best people. We live in a relative world : to 
themselves the blacks of New York were the acme of 
wit and exclusiveness. The interior of the front 
parlor was adorned with holly and evergreens. Sev- 
eral branches of mistletoe peeped from underneath the 
blazing chandelier. Out of the thirty guests of the 
L'Heureux, twelve were full-blooded negroes. Some 
hailed from the city of Brooklyn and adjoining towns, 
where they had built themselves up a certain regard 
as persons of responsibility. Among these was a war 
fugitive from Georgia, who had apprenticed himself 
to a druggist to slave in the laboratory. He had 
eventually mastered the business and set up an estab- 
lishment for himself. Another was a real estate agent, 
who, from being patronized solely on account of his 
skin, had invited patronage because of his business 
abilities and his probity. He was said to be as shrewd 
as a Jew. Both of these men had married of their 
own race, if not of their own hue, and had given birth 
-to children of both sexes. 

After the ceremony of introduction was over Har- 
old found himself in a little coterie composed of his 
hostess, one Peter Johnson, his wife, and Angela 



132 



HAROLD. 



Hyde, the daughter of a Harlem house builder and 
contractor. Miss Hyde was the only black young 
woman in the assemblage. The difference between 
her and the mulattoes and quadroons was strongly 
marked. She laid no pretence to conversational 
ability, but managed to play several airs on the 
piano acceptably. Strange as it may seem, she 
courted Harold's attention very assiduously, yet Har- 
old felt no emotion but that of repugnance toward 
these advances. In person, Miss Hyde was of the 
full-lipped, flat-nosed, frowzy-haired type, and was 
really considered by those who looked from an 
Ethiop's coign of vantage the belle of the evening. 

Peter Johnson, on the other hand, was a mulatto, 
and his wife a remarkably handsome quadroon. Mr. 
Johnson was a lawyer and a remarkably well-educated 
man, " as sharp as a knife, sah !" as one of the com- 
pany remarked confidentially to Harold. The re- 
mainder of the ensemble was more or less demonstra- 
tive and in general keeping with the type of Ameri- 
can men and women of color who have mixed much 
with the white man. 

The conversation first ran on the individual healths 
of the party. Some averred they were feeling but 
" poorly," and there seemed to be no intervening or 
qualifying condition. The remainder were feeling 
" first-rate." Then talk on the weather and church 
matters was in order, and by degrees dress and edibles 
were appropriately discussed. Then some one gave 
the signal for dancing to begin, and every eye ap- 
peared to glisten as if by magic. The negro of every 
caste dearly loves dancing. Harold discovered that 



HAROLD. 



133 



the circle in which L'Heureux and his wife moved 
was not a theatre-going class ; that the higher temples 
of the drama were practically closed to them. The- 
atre parties were an impossibility. 

"1 only go to the theatre rarely," observed Mr. 
Johnson. " In fact, I don't care much for it. You 
can't tell whether the man who sits next to you isn't 
going to kick up a row or your wife get insulted. It 
spoils all the enjoyment you get out of it. As soon 
as we colored people have a theatre of our own I'll go 
oftener, perhaps." 

Ordinarily the blacks were very fond of the drama. 

Harold refrained from dancing, but sat chatting 
with the negro druggist and L'Heureux. He learned 
that Johnson was an accomplished story-teller and 
full of reminiscent anecdotes of his personal history 
and travels. For Johnson was born in Alabama, and 
had been carried North when a mere child as the 
private page of a Congressman, who had educated him 
and afterward had taken him abroad, after receiving 
an appointment as Spanish consulate. 

Thus Johnson had had more than natural advan- 
tages, and was consequently enabled to even separate 
himself at times from his race, and even to look at 
society and politics from the broader plane of the 
white man. 

This was the field in which Harold Bright now re- 
solved to cast all his energies and talents. 



CHAPTER XX. 



" Did not thy hue betray whose brat thou art, 
Had nature ]ent thee but thy mother's look, 
Thou might'st have been an emperor 

— Titus Andronicus. 

Months, even years, sped on with Harold. 

It lias now grown to be the middle of summer. 
The plants and flowers growing by the wayside exude 
their accustomed fragrance. The fragrance mingles 
with the sunlight. Above, the white clouds soar and 
seem cool. Hundreds of feet below the Hudson 
glides pompously toward the sea. 

The boughs of the trees which overhang a path 
leading to the summit of the Palisades are of a sud- 
den brushed aside to permit a dismounted horseman 
to lead his animal on to a given point. The animal is 
secured by its bridle to the trunk of a stout maple. 

The figure is Harold Bright's, clean shaven, a little 
older, and with strange, grayish fibres in his jet hair. 
Still, only a very few years have elapsed. The animal 
Harold has just secured is a livery hack he has ridden 
up from Hoboken. He has a mare of his own, but 
Bess, as he calls her, is a trifle lame from a fall, 
and the difficulty of ferry-boat conveyance back and 
forth across the river usually spoils the day's enjoy- 
ment of the outing tourist. Horse and man are at 
present upon a little open, right on the brink of the 



HAROLD. 



135 



cliff — a smooth, grassy spot, with a huge rocky ledge 
projecting above the surface, and cut by nature's hand 
into a model seat from which to view with comfort 
and serenity the scene spread out below. It is not 
grand, it is not majestic, this view of the Hudson 
from the Palisades, but it is supremely beautiful, 
witching, fascinating, and exquisite, an euphemist 
would say. The vernal woodland on the eastern 
shore, dotted with towns and dwellings, seems too 
miniature to be real. It is like a scene from toy-ville 
and tinsel-land: the trees are of fragile tissue, and 
the houses are the pudgy, German painted blocks 
familiar to childhood ; the clouds which overhang them 
are puffs of pipe-smoke — nothing by any possibility 
can be real. It only needs the grave-faced urchin to 
come stalking in with his mouth full of raspberry 
tart, to knock the whole community over, and pack it 
up in his Noah's ark. 

Harold, having tied his horse, pushed the ivy aside 
and seated himself on the rock. Twenty feet away, 
to his right, a chasm had been formed lengthwise, and 
the front of the cliff became a sort of outer wall 
wooded with firs. Across this crevice a slender bridge 
had been thrown by the owner of the estate, who had 
built himself a mansion for his summer enjoyment 
further back among the trees. On the summit of 
this natural wall was a tiny observatory and a bed of 
bright flowers. It was the sole touch of color in the 
foreground of the picture Harold thus revelled in. 
The day was uncomfortably warm to the world below, 
but here a cooling breeze was blowing, and sitting in 
the shade of the flourishing maple which reared its 



136 



HAROLD. 



trunk just beside his stamping ground, Harold drew out 
his pipe, filled it with tobacco, and stretching his feet 
until they rested on an ivy hammock, at the base of 
the rock, luxuriously drank in the scene through the 
curling cloudlets of Cavendish. What a pity the 
mind could not always separate itself thus at will from 
the clodden smallness of life ! he thought. Why can 
we not mount above the pettiness of the world without 
such purely physical accessories as a pair of legs and 
the capacity for climbing up a few paltry feet of in- 
clined ground ? — which, by the way, the geographers 
tell us, is merely a grain of sand on the earth's surface. 

" Ah ! yes ; this is the life I ought to lead,'' Harold 
said to himself — " a quietly contemplative existence. 
Leave all the humdrum of a world in which such as 
I have no place and live like this always. I could 
easily do it in a few years. I could write my way to 
success, if all publishers were in duty bound to ac- 
cept." 

Harold thought with a glow of satisfaction of his 
literary success, of the marked cordiality with which 
his lucubrations had been received by newspaper and 
magazine editors in the metropolis. They thought 
him a novelty — a monstrosity in letters, perhaps, but 
what did he care for that ? They had done so well by 
him that he took no salary from L'Heureux, but had 
allowed it to accumulate as stock in the Freeman, 
which more than prospered in these days of problem- 
atical agitation. 

It was while ruminating this way that Harold heard 
voices, seemingly close at hand. The voices he soon 
found proceeded from a group of children, laughing 



HAROLD. 



137 



forerunners of a picnic party. It was just the day 
for a picnic and this was just the spot. Shielded as 
he was by rock and tree, Harold remained unobserved 
as the party, which apparently consisted of three or 
four ladies and a dozen or more children, proceeded 
to emplace its hampers, parasols, and various other 
belongings in picturesque confusion upon the summit. 
Forty feet from the ledge the children prattled and 
played games, in which latter diversions the women 
joined by turns. The sound of the voices could 
readily be distinguished, and at times, as they sat 
knitting and crocheting apart, whole sentences of 
their conversation drifted over to Harold. 

Two hours passed by, and the black had fallen into 
an ecstatic doze, when a slight noise caused him to 
reopen his eyes lazily. Before him, a few feet dis- 
tant, was a child of about five — a boy — with crisp 
golden curls, that reflected the sunlight and made a 
yellow fringe about his dark-hued Tarn o' Shanter. 
He was busy plucking the daisies from their stalks, 
and occasionally a fluffy, superannuated dandelion, 
which he paused long enough to blow into a million 
feathery atoms. Harold contemplated the child with 
varied emotions. He was no longer drowsy. His 
fanciful mood this sunny afternoon led him to sur- 
round the youngster with a tinge of romantic interest. 
As he watched the tin) 7 , bending figure and listened 
to the winning prattle, he wondered why he could not 
have remained such a one in the old, old days at 
Capenhurst. He wondered if this child ever thought 
of the inestimable blessing God had bestowed upon 
him in making his skin white, and what there could 



138 



HAROLD, 



be in the future to set itself as a barrier across that 
young life. He tried to weave a future for him as 
he lay there propped up against the rock, shielded 
from the sun's rays. His life would doubtless be one 
of content. Passing over his school -days, at twenty 
he would naturally fall in love, and being well-to-do 
and handsome, that love w r ould probably be returned 
with interest. This subject of love naturally led 
Harold's vagaries back over the path of his own ex- 
perience and to thoughts of Mabel Vere. As he did so 
he clasped his hands together suddenly and bitterly. 
The boy, who had been straying dangerously near the 
edge of the precipice, was immediately attracted by 
the noise. He turned his chubby face, expecting to 
greet an anxious sister or a laughing playmate who 
had come back to restore him to the group. There 
was a pretty smile on his lips, and his big blue eyes 
stared roguishly from under his cap. At that instant 
he caught sight of the black, who, alarmed for the 
child's safety, had started up and turned, also smiling, 
upon him. The sight was too much for the little 
fellow. No smile of Harold's could relieve that ogre- 
like blackness. With a shrill scream he turned, made 
scarce a single step forward, and was dashed helplessly 
over the edge of the precipice. 

Harold Bright felt a spasm of horror run through 
his frame, but he did not lose his presence of mind. 

Without waiting to peer over the brink, he raised his 
voice and shouted to the child's companions. Then 
with a bound he threw r his body along the ground and 
leaned over, fully expecting to behold, away down 
among the trees and boulders, hundreds of feet, a tiny 



HAROLD. 



139 



mangled heap of flesh. Judge of his surprise and 
relief on realizing that the child's fall had been broken 
by the limbs of a sapling, which, along with many 
others, grew along the sides of the Palisades. In all 
probability, he explained to the breathless women 
who came running to meet him, their charge was 
practically unhurt. The sapling was only some fifteen 
feet from the top of. the cliff, and would not be a 
difficult matter to reach. The child had evidently 
been stunned by the fall, as he lay perfectly still. The 
only trouble to be feared was that he might become 
excited and move before he could be rescued. In a 
few simple words Harold explained how the accident 
occurred and of his presence there. He begged that 
three or four of the older children be sent for help 
and ropes, and then without more ado threw off his 
coat and began to examine the face of the cliff. 

As the seconds flew by, the danger that the child 
might return to consciousness and move returned to 
him with such force that he determined to attempt the 
w r ork of rescue alone. The nearest house was half a 
mile distant ; it might be fifteen minutes before help 
arrived. A closer examination of the bough showed 
more plainly than ever the extreme precariousness of 
the child's lodgment. A sudden gust of wind might 
render the fall fatal and rescue absolutely hopeless. 
There was but one really wise, though daring thing to 
do. It was quite possible to descend the cliff by the 
aid of stones and shrubbery, and, having approached 
the sapling, either to trust to its strength in bearing 
two or to hold the child in a secure position until 
help arrived. All of this Harold accomplished almost 



140 



HAROLD. 



as soon as lie had declared liis intentions. The 
women, all of whom were young, appeared to be 
quite as cool and self-possessed as it was possible to be 
under the circumstances. One of them even found 
time, while Harold's difficult and perilous descent was 
being made, to make an observation on his appear- 
ance. 

" Girls, I never saw a negro like that before," she 
said. u I cannot believe that he is a negro." 

Shortly after Harold reached the sapling the child 
returned to consciousness, and immediately made an 
involuntary movement, which would have sufficed to 
dislodge him from its branches. It was only then 
that the wisdom of Harold's venture was thoroughly 
apprehended by the anxious watchers above. 

" God bless you !" one of them ejaculated, and the 
rest looked into each other's eyes. The coolest of 
the party was a brunette of about twenty-five, who 
scarcely removed her eyes once from Harold. 

It was said that her face was the hue of snow and 
that she grappled the arm of one of her companions 
in a vice. She was too much moved to speak mere 
idle words of praise or encouragement. She was the 
sister of the boy. 

In five minutes more succor came. Two laborers 
let down a slender rope, with which Harold bound the 
boy's waist, who began to cry in the most natural 
manner. He was told to hold on tightly, and foot by 
foot he was drawn safely up and landed on the top 
of the cliff, very little the worse for his mishap. 

His rescuer no v proceeded to free himself from his 
own surroundings. Strange as it may seem, it was a 



HAROLD. 



141 



much more treacherous ascent than descent, but Har- 
old shunned the rope, which was quite insufficient to 
support more than a child's weight, and proceeded to 
work his way sideways to the summit. He continued 
in this manner until he hung directly over a sort of 
projecting ledge, thirty-five feet below, and his right 
hand grasped a shrub two feet from the top. 

" Good Heavens, but he should not be allowed to 
climb that without help !" 

It was again the grateful sister who spoke. One of 
the laborers was in the act of reaching down to give 
him aid, and the whole party was viewing the task as 
already accomplished, when the stone loosened in its 
clayey socket, a set of sable fingers clutched nervously 
at the brow of the precipice, and the next moment the 
body of Harold shot downward, a cry of horror echo- 
ing along its course. 



CHAPTER XXI. 



M Have you eyes ? 
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed 
And batten on this moor?" 

— Hamlet. 

Harold lay for weeks in the shadow of death. His 
falling upon the earthy ledge instead of on the rocks 
below alone saved his life. Mr. Markham, the uncle 
of the child so heroically rescued, had summoned the 
best medical aid, and himself took a deep interest in 
the brave black's recovery. 

As for Miss Mildred Markham, her gratitude gave 
way to a sense of acquired right in a hero. Shelold 
the story of the rescue fifty times, and in each repe- 
tition she bequeathed an additional fascination to her 
listeners. So attractive did the tale become in her 
hands, that the young men and the newspaper reporters 
fancied for a moment they were listening at the court of 
Haroun to a romance from the lips of Schehezerade. 

As for Harold, he remained, like the Abyssinian 
prince in the tale, a captive in spite of himself. Par- 
tially returned to consciousness, he found that his arm 
and leg had been broken and that he had sustained 
other, if slight injuries. As his eyes became fully 
opened and bis vision .more alert, he had found these 
riveted on a beautiful young woman standing over him 
at his bedside. Then he remembered the events just 



HAROLD. 



143 



preceding the accident and inquired about his sur- 
roundings. 

" Where am I ?" he asked, in a feeble whisper. 

A doctor was in the room now. An ill- concealed 
sneer was on his lips even as he bid his patient com- 
pose himself. 

" There, there, George, take it easy— don't talk," 
he said, almost flippantly. 

Harold gritted his teeth. A couple of decades be- 
fore this doctor would, in the same way, have called 
him Cuffy. Harold learned that L'Heureux had 
been there, and having convinced himself that his 
friend's injuries were not fatal, had begged that he 
might be removed as .soon as that process could be 
effected without danger. Mr. Markham had himself 
replied to this request, and first became aware, from 
some answers let fall by L'Heureux, that the savior of 
his little orphan nephew was no ordinary black. At 
the dinner-table the quality of his linen had first in-* 
vited discussion by the female members of the house- 
hold. The stamp of gentility which Harold habit- 
ually bore, apparent even in repose and under his jet 
skin, became a nine- days' wonder among the domes- 
tics. 

Then came the long fever. The pent-up torments 
of many weary months now found a wild, incoherent 
ebulliency in his ravings. Harold fancied himself a 
lord who had been wronged of his rights. At another 
time he called wildly for his horse, and wept because 
Herr Felix had ordered the animal shot. He mistook 
the Irish domestic who entered the apartment for his 
old nurse, Ellen Shaw, dead and buried these many 



144 



HAROLD. 



years. He called Miss Markham Lady May, to her 
utter amazement and the physician's sneering curiosity. 

But over all these fantasies hung the deep black 
shadow of Inigo Bright as of a great demon, which 
was forever moulding Harold to his ends or threaten- 
ing him with horrible torments. Over all the lesser 
characters in the sick man's trance spread the figure 
of the Experimentist. 

" Look, look!" he would shriek; " there, there 
he is ! Oh, no, no ; I cannot do it ! He is pointing 
at me ! I must do as he bids." Then he would cower 
on his pillow as if a real Titan had held out a threat- 
ening and a powerful clutch over his head. 

When Mildred Markham was not reading poetry 
and novels or writing, she sat listening to these strange 
utterances of the sick man. At first she thought their 
allusions to be a not unnatural hallucination. They 
were the hollow vaporings of a fevered dream. But 
continued day after day, regular, appealing, and con- 
sistent, her own imagination took fire. Mildred was 
an orphan. Her uncle being a weak, indulgent 
man, who was rather afraid of his niece, saw the 
machinations of genius in her every simple caprice. 
He would have placed the half-dying youth in a cot 
in the barn or woodshed, if Mildred had not ordered 
him transported to one of the lightest, airiest rooms 
in the whole house. This room bordered on the 
lower veranda. Thither the young woman came and 
sat, and marvelled and speculated, and nursed him as 
only an ardorous, spoiled feminine temperament can, 
for whole summer afternoons. She charged the 
regular attendant to tell her all the* young sufferer 



HAROLD. 



145 



said which could shed any light on his past. For a 
time she actually forgot herself in the thought of a 
possible romance. She dreamed of Harold as a brave 
and generous Othello, and in the dim, uncertain light 
a yielding Desdemona became at once visible. 

At another time a change came across the spirit of 
her dreams, and Harold would be Rasselas or Aladdin 
amid the draped ravishment of Oriental finery. 

An idle girl can imagine almost anything under the 
blue vault of heaven. 

One day her maid brought her a packet of letters 
and papers which had been found in Harold's coat 
while the garment was being brushed. Harold's 
horse had grown sleek and fat during his master's 
illness. Harold's linen had been changed during his 
fever and his clothes hung up. Mildred Markham 
could not resist the curiosity to examine these epis- 
tles. There were many verses written by the hand 
and from the heart of this man. A letter from Arthur 
Danthorne, dated from the Embassy at Paris, made 
her start and leap like a child with curiosity and won- 
derment. Surely mortal eye had never rested upon 
such gentility and such pathos bound in so uncouth a 
covering before. One of the verses, entitled " Isola- 
tion," set her brain fairly dancing with its suggestive- 
ness. The verses ran in this fashion : 

" All mankind is moving round me, 
With its restlessness of mind ; 
But Fate's mighty chains have bound me 
In a prison from my kind. 

" Others have their pain and pleasure, 
Others have their ends to gain, 



146 



HAROLD. 



Moving to the world's great measure, 
I alone have only pain ! 

u While yon millions, happy, hoping, 
Feel all that youth has e'er to give, 
In the darkness I am groping, 
Hardly deeming that I live. 

" Is there no one— God, give answer 
"Who knows solitude like mine, 
Is it that my soul is denser ? 

Has my heart blood changed to brine 

14 Heartstrings dulled, no chord respond 
Save to touch of sympathy. 
Surely others like despondeth, 
Surely some are lone as I !" 

When Mildred read this poem she was profoundly 
touched. For the first time since her childhood she 
abandoned selfishness. One must first understand her 
character. She had often wept for herself, never for 
another's woes. She burst into tears. She thought 
she saw a strange analogy in the yearnings of her own 
life to that of the man who had risked his life to save 
that of her infant brother. She crept out of her cham- 
ber and entered the room where Harold lay. His 
countenance wore a placid smile and he was wrapped 
in sleep. An indescribable feeling came over her as 
she surveyed the worn and wasted figure on the 
couch. 

When Harold Bright opened his eyes the next day 
Mildred Markham was near him. He thanked his 
benefactress again and again for her kindness toward 
him as soon as she had revealed herself to him. 

In return, Mildred asked him to tell her the story 



HAROLD. 



147 



of his life. She knew it was impossible that he could 
be that which he seemed. But in his stronger and 
better moments Harold would not have yielded to 
this request. To relate the history of his childhood 
and youth and travels, all of which he owed to Inigo, 
to a stranger, was revolting to his nature — he could 
not tell why. But now a spell was upon him. 

In low tones and simple imagery he set forth, some- 
times painfully, to this girl of another race his own 
strange history. 

Mildred was touched by it ; she could not have been 
otherwise. Gifted with a strong imagination, she ex- 
aggerated his isolated condition and her own. She 
scarcely dared to trust herself for several days in his 
presence, Thus the crisis approached, 



CHAPTER XXII. 



" The eagle suffers little birds to sing. 
And is not careful what they mean thereby, 
Knowing that with the shadow of his wings 
He can at pleasure stint their melody." 

— Shakespeare. 

The very impossibility and madness of the affair 
acted as fuel for Mildred's passion. Naturally Harold 
was affected, too, but that is not so remarkable. In 
the first place, no woman had ever spoken to him so 
before ; no woman had ever cared for him thus. In 
his weak state he continued to listen to the voice of 
Mildred Markham with the shadow of the past upon 
him. 

Suddenly a great light broke upon his vision, and he 
sent for L'Heureux and begged to return to the city. 
The doctor opposed it, but Harold was obdurate. 
Mildred Markham preferred to be silent. Perhaps 
she was trying to battle with this unnatural predilec- 
tion of hers, to stifle it ere it overpowered her. At 
any rate, she kept to her room, and it was announced 
that she was ill. It was not till after the black youth 
had gone that her passion returned to her with ac- 
cumulated force. 

L'Heureux and his wife took Harold's return 
gravely. They welcomed him with hearty affection. 
As the physician had predicted, the change had done 
him no good. In truth, a relapse had almost set in. 



HAROLD. 



149 



He took to his bed and remained there for over a 
fortnight. During this time Harold's brain all but 
broken down with the continued strain of thinking. 
He made notes in a tablet which he kept under his 
pillow. He dictated a long leader for the paper to 
L'Heureux, who at first would not hear of his 
making such an effort. Wearied of speculation, his 
mental activity took the form of iterated passages 
from his favorite books. It was in this short fort- 
night that many of his later and most dangerous 
opinions were formed. A reference in a newspaper 
L'Heureux was reading called forth his bitterest 
anger and sarcasm. 

" L'Heureux," he said, " let us come right down 
to the issue frankly. What do you mean by the 
4 equality of man 5 ?" 

66 Why," began L'Heureux, wonderingly, " I guess 
you know pretty well. It's wdiat the Freeman has 
been preaching." 

" Oh, confound the Freeman /" 

L'Heureux took umbrage. 

Harold hastened to say : 

16 Hold on, old fellow, don't be angry. Try and 
answer my question. When you speak of all men 
being equal, do you mean that they are really so ?" 

" For political "purposes, yes. That is all 1 care 
about." 

" Very well. Do you recall that line in ' Felix Holt ' 
— 6 No party, religious or political , has laid it down as 
a principle that all men are equally virtuous 9 ? 
There's irony for you. But why do you say political ? 
You grant there are social distinctions ?" 



150 



HAROLD. 



"It wouldn't do to preach that doctrine in the 
Freeman. Yes, there are several lines : the great one 
between rich and poor, the small one between brains 
and folly, and — and the ungranted one — between white 
and black. " 

"Yes," reflected Harold, grandiloquently; "the 
line — the line — but what is it ?" 
And then he wrote : 

" The line, the defined, concise, circumscribed 
boundary of social, political, and religious privileges, 
that furnishes conservatism an excuse and fanaticism a 
text ? Or the line, that hazy, ambiguous, apocryphal 
division, jeered at by honest Tom and confirmed by 
our philosophers, anarchists, and election-time pam- 
phleteers ?' ' This he repeated aloud. 

" Harold, where did you learn to talk like that ?" 

It was L'Heureux who thus spoke indignantly. 
Harold's words had hurt him. Harold's reply seemed 
flippant and immaterial, and, thinking him unwell, 
the senior editor of the Freeman quietly left the room. 

In less than an hour after the foregoing conversa- 
tion Harold arose and dressed himself unaided for the 
first time since the accident. He reflected : 

"Now why should L'Heureux be blind ? Equal- 
ity — bah ! it almost makes me laugh. The tallest 
pine and the most stunted fir yield alike to the wood- 
man's axe, but that doesn't prevent" the pine from 
having the most sunlight and the most air. Truly 
we are all equal — in death. As the Frenchman says : 
' The only thing common to all men is the common 
end of all men.' We are all born and we all eat, 
but you cannot spoil the epigram, for what about 



HAROLD, 



151 



the silver spoons at birth and the diet of pheasant's 
wings ? And, again, all birds fly, but it is the eagle 
that soars the highest, and the tiny, paltry lark laughs 
at the industrious barn fowl." 

There is a simile for you, L'Heureux," pursued 
Harold, bitterly. " The birds are all free, but what 
would the hen do soaring under the vault of the blue 
sky and the lark hopping laboriously over the barn- 
yard fence ?" 

Harold leaned his chest heavily against the frame 
of the window and looked across the tops of the 
houses. He watched the smoke of the chimneys and 
went on musing. Of a sudden there, came a knock 
at the door, and he called upon whoever it was to 
enter. It turned out to be Cassius White, one of the 
deacons of the church in Thirty th Street. Cas- 
sius White was very much attached to Harold. He 
was quite shocked to find him out of bed, and cau- 
tioned him to be more careful of the doctor's injunc- 
tions. 

" Yo' kaint look out nigh enough, Mr. Bright. 
This yere fever's a mighty delicate thing, and yo' 
must be mighty particular, or there will surely come a 
relapse." 

" Sit down, Cassius," said Harold, unheeding the 
other's remarks. " I'm glad you have come, for I 
want to talk to you." There was silence for several 
moments, and then the younger man said : " You 
used to teach school once, didn't you ? At least, 
I have heard so. Learned to read and write and 
taught it to a number of freedmen just after the war." 

Cassius White nodded. 



152 



HAROLD. 



" All my teachers were white men, you know,' 
pursued the younger man ; and after a pause : " Did 
you believe the Reconstructionists when they told 
you that you were now on a level with your masters ?" 

u It came quite sudden, sure," returned Cassius, 

" Well, they were lying," continued Harold, coolly. 
He was feeling his way. He wished to test his new 
line of thought. " They were lying to you, as you 
know by this time, for mere political motives. It is 
all very well for a mocking-bird, who has the un- 
bounded ether of limitless space to soar in, to tell the 
caged creature that it, too, is free ; but his telling 
doesn't make it so any more than it does for one man 
to tell another that he can henceforth fly, when it 
happens that God made that man without wings. 
Human physical conditions prevent equality — they 
often make it impossible ; but the great lie remains 
unatoned and unpunished. A lie has been told to 
seven millions of hungry, simple, trusting people, 
who have toiled on since with an unflagging, abiding 
confidence, only to find when they come to the borders 
of Canaan that the promised land is not for them." 

" We certainly ought to have offices," reflected 
Cassius. 

" Ought to have !" repeated Harold, grimly — 
" ought to have ! No, my friend, you are a fool. 
It is the wisest of fools that knows his own folly. 
As long as we are a race of gibbering idiots we should 
have nothing — except revenge ; yes, even fools can 
have that. Revenge ! The ' colored man ' forsooth ! 
Are w r e ashamed of making Hack unfashionable if we 
call ourselves so ? And you — you don't mean to be a 



HAROLD, 



153 



fool. You are only a contemptible, misguided per- 
son, my friend, to think that by labelling yourself 
White to change men's opinion of you. Why call 
yourself so ? I am sure that was not your master's 
name. Go and petition the Legislature to-morrow 
for a change. Anyway, you have sons, and perhaps 
we who must act shall need them." 

Cassius hobbled out of the room in the deepest 
chagrin. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



" A man should, whatever happens, stick to his own caste, 
race, and breed. Let the white go to the white and black to the 
black. Then, whatever trouble falls is in the ordinary course of 
things— neither sudden, alien, nor unexpected."— R. Kipling. 

Upon his recovery Harold worked for whole hours 
in the office of the paper without conversing much 
with L'Heureux. He had more than once heard 
from Mildred Markham — this much was plain. That 
it racked him none could doubt. At such times he 
grew hardened and his black visage became set like a 
vice. It was not for hours, but for days at a time. 
It seemed then as if he lost consciousness of his own 
identity and brooded over the passage of mere circum- 
stances. 

One day in the ensuing autumn, a bright, crisp, 
sunshiny morning, found him strolling meditatively 
through the Park. The Freeman had gone to press 
the day before, and it was the custom of both L'Heu- 
reux and himself to snatch a half holiday at such times 
each week. Time had been when L'Heureux accom- 
panied him on these rides or rambles. Harold went 
alone now. His erect, elastic figure moved along at 
an easy pace, neither turning to the right nor to the 
left, lest by any chance he should be unpleasantly 
diverted by objects on the course. Any one who saw 
him at such times usually looked twice. It was not a 



HAROLD. 



155 



sight to be seen every day. Anderson, the wealthy 
negro coal merchant, who owned his coach and pair, 
was fond of pointing out the English black to his 
friends as a type of what the race would be some day. 
The whites admired Harold at sight ; when they heard 
more of him they shook their heads and muttered the 
one word. It was " Exception." 

Harold never looked better in his life than on this 
particular morning. He increased his pace for a mo- 
ment down one of the winding paths which lead so 
unexpectedly to sunken dells and benched nooks. 
Now it ran into the equestrian roadway, overhung 
with tall maples and elm shrubs. To continue on his 
way by the route he had taken, it was necessary for 
Harold to cross this road. He had taken a single step 
forward when two figures on horseback loomed up 
from behind the bend. Harold saw only indistinctly 
that one was a female, and, merely reconsidering the 
step he had taken, waited for the pair to pass without 
further scrutiny. The next moment a strange thing 
happened. The woman had drawn rein, reeled in her 
saddle, and would have fallen if the black had not 
sprung forth and grasped her arm. It was Miss Mil- 
dred Markham. In another instant she had fainted 
in his arms. Her companion was so astonished that 
he lost his wits and could not have lifted a hand. 
He was a pale youth in a very high collar. 

" Run for some water, quick," said Harold, calmly. 

The escort stared inanely. 

" Will you go ?" Harold spoke fiercely, and this 
high-born gentleman was off at the bidding of his late 
bondsman. He returned with a tin cup wrenched 



150 



HAROLD. 



from a fountain hard by the aqueduct, just as Harold 
had lifted Miss Markham bodily from her horse and 
laid her on the grass with her head on his knee. He 
took the vessel from her escort in silence. "Wetting her 
pocket-handkerchief, he bathed her forehead gently. 
Miss Markham opened her eyes, looked around wildly 
for a moment, and closed them again. It seemed as 
if she were revolving the situation in her mind. 
When she opened her eyes again she sprang unaided 
to her feet. Looking her companion straight in the 
face, she lifted her finger dramatically and uttered the 
one word, " Go !" 

If the youth had been a trained spaniel he could 
not have obeyed more punctiliously. Mounting his 
horse he wheeled about and gave Mildred a half -ter- 
rified, half-appealing look, which she answered with 
scorn. Almost immediately the hoofs of his horse 
were echoing from the bend in the road. 

Harold was the first to speak. 

" Wasn't that injudicious ?" he said. He spoke 
calmly, even reproachfully. 

For answer Mildred Markham sprang toward him 
like a wild creature, and winding her arms about his 
neck, murmured passionately : 

" I care nothing for the world. 1 love you !" 

Months of self-repression told on both. Harold 
found himself unmanned. As for the woman, she was 
oblivious. The former was the first to rally. Taking 
Mildred's arm with one hand and passing the bridle 
of the horse through the other, he led them both 
across the road. Deftly securing the animal to the 
bough of a tree, he motioned his companion to artistic 



HAROLD. 



157 



bench, to which he half drew, half bore her. She 
was taken with a violent fit of weeping. A pair of 
equestrians passed hurriedly. With admirable pres- 
ence of mind Harold hung a handkerchief over his 
brow. He did not care to attract unwonted attention. 
Mildred observed the action. 

" I hate the world!" she muttered, chokingly, 
" because — they despise you." 

Harold at length spoke. 

" Stop, Miss Markham ! 1 must — it is my duty to 
recall you to yours. " 

Mildred paid no attention to the spirit of the 
speech. 

" Miss Markham ? " she asked, petulantly. 

" Mildred, then, if you will. Do not think I 
haven't struggled over this thing," he went on, 
hastily ; " I am of different clay from yours. God 
never intended that we should wed — " 

" "Wed ! Wed ! Gracious Heaven ! why wed ? 
What do I care for marriage. I ask for your love." 
And she clasped him more tightly than ever, as if 
fearing his defection. 

" But do you not think of me ?" Harold asked, 
with reproach in his tone. 

" You, you! Do we not both hate the world? 
What has it to give either of us ? Let us fly ! I have 
money, wealth in my own right. We can be together, 
Harold! Ah!" cried Mildred, " you do not under- 
stand, you do not know how I love you !" 

The voice of the temptress sank deep into Harold's 
lieart. The voice of the world did not seem as strange 
to him as to her. He was by breeding a gentleman. 



158 



HAROLD. 



The distinctions of race were comparatively new. 
When his eyes had been opened he had thought his 
entire existence blighted forever, With the unselfish 
strength he had left he had already done all in his 
power to prevent, put away, and blot out the love 
of one whom he had come to learn of a higher, 
nobler race. Fate had again thrown it across his path. 
Why should he not take advantage of it ? He had 
intended to revenge himself on the world for the mis- 
fortune of his being in it. He had planned to devote 
himself and his talents to the race — to revenge himself 
in avenging their wrongs. But why further expose 
himself to insult and humiliation ? Here was a woman 
whom he had fascinated so intensely that she forgot her 
very self-respect. It did not occur to Harold that if 
he had been of her own race she perhaps would not 
have cared for him. Besides, he loved her. He 
could love her more. He could honorably accept her 
fortune. But honorably or not, what did it matter to 
him, an outcast, a pariah, a leper, what were the 
world's customs and forms to one whom his equals did 
not recognize as an equal and never would unto eternity, 
if they could help it ? All this Harold thought as he 
looked for an instant into Mildred's face, and yet he 
answered : 

" Stop ! Our ways in life lie apart. It is true I 
love you, but we must never meet again. Another 
instant and 1 should have been lost forever, and my 
name and yours would have been irretrievably ruined. 
1 hate to think of the consequences which would re- 
sult from such a union as ours. Mount your horse, 5 
Miss Markham, and return to your father. Black as 



HAROLD. 



159 



I am, the world shall not say I could do so black a 
deed. Black, black— in all its fairness black." 

So saying, he led his companion from their seat and 
bid her mount. Mildred, dazed, speechless with com- 
bined anger and sorrow, obeyed. Harold did not 
even take her hand : he only bowed reverently. Then 
giving a sign to the animal, he waited until it had 
started, and listening to the echoes in the distance, he 
placed his hat firmly on his head and strode back over 
the path. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



" By Heaven, thy love is black as ebony !" 

— Love' s Labour 1 s Lost 

That night the legions of anger, misery, hate, and 
regret flanked and reflanked themselves before Har- 
old's fevered vision. All through the thick and silent 
shadows he tossed upon his pillow. He was the prey 
of a million merciless fancies. When the gray, cold 
spirit of dawn came creeping into the chamber, it 
found a man morally racked and helpless. Harold 
Bright had been tempted. He had resisted without 
even the hope of moral applause. 

Insidiously and without his being wholly aware of 
it, there came to him with the dawn a much stronger 
emotion. Hate of the world had' at length joined his 
side. Hate of the white had stolen across his outer 
battlements and intrenched itself in the place of the 
moral agent. 

Harold slept two hours after dawn, but his dreams 
were ghastly. 

"When the sleeper awoke the new power had taken 
possession of his breast, and his mind as to his future 
was thoroughly made up. He would sell his one-third | 
interest in the Freeman to L'Heureux, if the latter 
wished it. It was his by every right. He had toiled 
years for it, and the paper had become prosperous. 



HAROLD. 



161 



When he had received the money he determined to 
travel. His desire now was to tread on Southern 
soil. He had reasons in his own breast for visiting 
that section of the vast country wherein he had elected 
to live. 

Actuated by these impulses, Harold hastily arose. 
He had not shown similar alacrity for many weeks. 
As he prepared his toilet he soliloquized. 

It was true, he said to himself, he had now a new 
incentive for life and action, but it seemed to him 
paltry and unworthy compared with his old ideals. 
He no longer held the old ambition. It is the stern 
delight of striving that animates men and sends the 
Mood bounding through their veins. Harold Bright 
had been ambitious, but he had not had a defined 
ambition. Long ago, though, after that first inter- 
view with L'Heureux, ambition had helped him rally 
from the shock which his pride and manhood had re- 
ceived. 

" Surely I can become somebody — something here," 
he had said. " If God has lifted me above my race, 
why should these and all the world not see me above 
their heads ?" 

He w r as one, indeed, who struggled against the 
tide. As the months and years had slipped by 
doubt and despair at times found a haven in his heart, 
but he never permitted himself to mistrust his own 
powers. Once, when he, months ago, had done 
something particularly clever which attracted the 
notice of a great journal of the metropolis, everybody 
hastened to congratulate him. Harold enjoyed their 
praise. 



162 



HAROLD. 



And each year, separated as lie was from the great 
body of his race by the only true distinction of the 
human body politic, he lost his buoyancy as he divined 
more. The anomaly of his situation had at first been 
a novelty which, degrading as it was, he could bear 
cheerfully and did. But as the novelty wore away, he 
had set himself about examining his fellows and dis- 
covering if the writers of the books he had read were 
right or wrong. Where did. his race stand ? What 
was his status ? This for two years had been his 
greatest study. From it he had turned, as he could 
but have done, with chagrin and wretchedness. 

"If they wouldn't lie to us, L'Heureux, it 
wouldn't be so hard to bear !" he once said, stormily. 
" Why does H — — swear we are his equals, when he 
knows he is lying. His bringing up statistics in the 
Senate to prove that the colored man is enjoying 
social and political privileges he never enjoyed before 
is insulting to us and a whole nation. We can't all 
be journalists, L'Heureux, and the rest of us are still 
porters and cooks and hod-carriers. We are toler- 
ated by our dear friends ! How can we encourage 
manhood among us when our pride and self-respect is 
every day trampled upon. I never take a seat in a 
common street car but what I am humiliated. We 
may be physically clean, intellectually superior, and 
even pecuniarily above them, yet they recognize no 
exceptions and brand us all swine alike." 

" You will get used to it," stated L'Heureux, with 
cold candor ; "it is because your spirit is high and 
because you are so sensitive." 

" I hope to God it will be broken soon. One 



HAROLD. 



163 



would think we were lepers and covered with sores 
instead of being merely black." 

" I could tell you why," began L'Heureux, but he 
was silent. Ye&r§ £)f . observation had taught him to 
see racial antipathy in its proper light. 

But Harold had not always been moping. He had 
laid himself out to please at times, and succeeded 
admirably. He attended Sarah L'Heureux' s parties 
with enthusiastic regularity, and won the hearts of the 
black belles as no black had ever done before. He 
had quickly learned to adapt himself to them and their 
tastes. 

Then suddenly, without warning, had come the inci- 
dent on the Palisades — that strange, double infatuation 
of Mildred Markham and himself. He had thought 
it all over and relegated to the past his past, so for- 
tuitous and so unique. Then the shadow had again 
fallen upon him. 

This time Harold's reason almost tottered. It is 
difficult to see how he could have escaped eternal 
blight if a strange thing had not happened. A little 
seed took root in his mind. 

The name of the seed was Hate. It was of the 
kind whose fruit is vengeance. 

Harold dressed himself this morning and descended 
to breakfast. After the repast he mentioned his sud- 
denly formed resolve to L'Heureux. It seemed as if 
L'Heureux could scarce believe his ears. 

" But, Bright," he faltered, in astonishment, u the 
idea of selling your share. I have told you again and 
again you have done more than I to make the Free- 
many 



164 



HAROLD. 



" Yes ; but I must go. In fact, my old friend, I 
have determined to leave for South Carolina to-mor- 
row." 

L'Heureux stopped and looked at his companion, 
amazed. 

"Well, of course," he began, "you know best; 
but wait, why do you wish to sell what you have 
earned ? You are going South. That is the very 
thing. I have often wanted to go, but — but you 
know the risk for me. The whites are not fond of an 
educated colored man, a 'nigger out of his place.' 
Why can you not go in the interests of the Freeman V\ 

Harold had not thought of that. He was quite 
touched at his friend's kindness. 

"It will take money, L'Heureux," he said, at 
length. " I do not intend to separate myself entirely 
from the Freeman^ but you know how we differ." 

" Yes, I know. We think differently now. I do 
not know what you think, Harold, but I have seen 
the change. Perhaps I guess but half of it !" 

" You would not have me write that which you 
know I do not believe." 

6 i You are right ; although at last our roads have 
begun to diverge, the scenery and environments of both 
paths are identical. We have still much in common ; 
besides, you may yet retrace your steps. Go South 
and write of what you see. I will give you the 
money. I shall draw five hundred dollars from the 
bank this morning, representing, you know, part of the 
paper's surplus fund," L'Heureux added with a 
laugh. 

But the two friends had, indeed, lately become much 



HAROLD. 



1G5 



estranged. L'Heureux was devoted to the interests 
of his race. He believed in the future of himself and 
kind. He fancied he saw a gradual working out of 
the destiny of his race. The negro was to take his 
seat on the level of the white man. The hand that 
was to hold the sceptre of government was to be black 
in proportion as the sinewy arm that wields the axe of 
labor now is. Education was to accomplish all this. 
In his appeal to the Convention of the Children of 
African Ancestry he had said : " Ultimately in the 
homes of the colored people will the so-called race 
problem be solved." The editor of the Freeman 
saw injustice in not fully recognizing the black man 
as a man and brother, but Bright began to see and 
appreciate the injustice of recognizing him from the 
first at all. 

Harold delayed his departure for two days longer. 
L'Heureux accompanied him across the Hudson to 
the depot and bade him an affectionate God-speed. 
As for L'Heureux, he sincerely thought his friend 
and co-worker was suffering from a mental struggle, 
such as he himself had previously known and corn- 
batted. L'Heureux knew nothing of Mildred Mark- 
ham. 

The journey was quick, quiet, and engaging — that 
is, his fellow-travellers found it so. Among Harold's 
papers, letters of introduction to the towns and :ections 
he proposed to visit found no place. It invariably hap- 
pened that the black man of most political and social 
importance in each city was the Freeman's special 
correspondent and stanch adherent. It is difficult to 
appreciate the great power and circulation the paper 



166 



HAROLD. 



had by degrees obtained among negroes who were 
almost illiterate ; but its prestige was recognized, and 
Harold Bright was, as events proved, hailed with 
every evidence of cordiality. The day upon which 
he arrived in Charleston was very different from that 
upon which he had landed in America five yeais 
since. Although the seasons were close upon each 
other, the sun now shone with increasing splendor. 
The air, instead of being bleak and damp, shed mild 
vapors over the city. 



CHAPTER XXY. 



" And moved through life of lower phase." 

Two figures were seated in the haze of a November 
twilight. 

" You ought certainly to be content," mused the 
first speaker, as if in comment on a personal narrative 
he had just heard. 

" Yes, sah," assented the other, earnestly; " 1 
reckon I ought." 

" You have a pleasant home ?" 

" Yes, right pleasant." 

" And good health ?" * 
" Well, I ain't complainin'. I s'pose ef the white 
man would give us a show I'd be certainly content ; 
but he ain't a-done it an' he ain't a-gwine to. I've 
given up hopm' he ever will. Yo' got to go North 
fo' politics, an' I ain't a-gwine to leave (less I'm 
compelled to) fo' no man. Yo' see, Mr. Bright, I was 
raised right yere, an' I don't want to leave or let the 
folks leave if I kin help it." 

Abel Kurtz was the name of the last speaker. He 
was fortunate in being one out of a thousand of ex- 
slaves. He had acquired a home and considerable 
property and a paying business. His white fellow- 
citizens never had any trouble with Abel, for Abel, 
if any man did, " knew his place'' and kept in it. 
A cook during the war, Abel was now employed in a 



168 



HAROLD, 



somewhat higher capacity by some of the best families 
of Charleston. Abel Kurtz was a clear-headed, intel- 
ligent negro, obsequious to the whites at all times 
when it was to his advantage to be so. Always good- 
natured, polite, it was only upon rare occasions that 
he was hail-fellow-well-met with his own race. He 
led Harold into his cosey sitting-room, where the open 
fire, burning brightly, threw shadows on the tasty furni- 
ture and bric-a-brac, and presented him to his wife 
and daughters. After a wholesome, well-cooked re- 
past and a short chat with the family, Harold begged 
to be shown to his room. Harold slept in the best 
apartment in the house and slept soundly. On the 
morrow, almost before the sun was up, he had risen and 
walked out to the Battery, pacing its walks and gazing 
out at sea. 

It was then that, as his eye drank in the smooth 
surface of the bay, skimmed by restless gulls and 
fanned by fruit-scented breezes from the Gulf, his 
heart for a moment forgot its trouble, and he again 
felt a child's emotions. He no longer remembered 
that a heavy burden lay upon him for all time. 
Harold forgot the curse of Canaan. He was by tem- 
perament a man who would have deemed a lowly fate 
by far the happiest, but philosophize as he would, he 
could not reconcile himself to the one he found him- 
self in. In the crisp morning sunlight health, peace, 
and fresh air appeared to him inestimable treasures, 
for w r hich he would exchange all the feverish hopes 
and hollow joys of an urban existence. The motives 
which had brought him where he was were tempo- 
rarily lost. A boyish gladness surged in his souk 



HAROLD, 



169 



Then it was that he suddenly came to himself, and 
the frenzied look he cast at the water beating upon 
the Battery stones startled the negro boatman who 
saw him from below. When he became wholly calm 
and rational, he found himself walking very fast back 
to his host's house. 

Abel Kurtz, the caterer, in a white vest and a 
massive watch-chain, stood awaiting him on the piazza. 

"X was most afraid yo' wouldn't be back in time 
fo' breakfast, Mr. Bright," he said, grinning. 

Harold responded with a smile. 

Abel thought to himself : 

" A mighty fine gentleman, this yere ! Wouldn't 
think to hear him talk he was a nigger at all. Hit 
beats all I ever see." 

To Harold the honest caterer said : 

" My young master used to take er walk befo 5 
breakfast every morning. He's dead and done buried 
a long time now. But he war a mighty likely man. 
A fine man war Master Charles." The old fellow 
even wiped away a tear. " Have another cup of 
coffee, Mr. Bright ?" 

The three daughters of the old man were present at 
the meal. The eldest was twenty-five, the youngest 
about fourteen. All had received a fair education, 
but one had profited by it more than the rest. Emily, 
the middle daughter, had developed a sensitive soul, 
and came to be thought morbid. She was the only 
member of this black household who remained shut 
up in the house. In the affairs to which her elder 
sister devoted her time and presence she was con- 
spicuous by her absence. She was ashamed of her 



170 



HAROLD. 



race, malicious people said. Harold gleaned these 
facts during the day, for her black sisters, and espe- 
cially her mother seldom let an occasion pass to good- 
humoredly twit her about it ; but the girl herself was 
silent, even to taciturnity. Harold learned as much 
as he could from Abel Kurtz and his family. In the . 
afternoon he drove out with Basie, the eldest daughter, t 
who showed him the city, its people and its mag- 
nolia-trees. She told him incidents of the earthquake 
and drove him out to the cemetery to look at the 
picturesque and historic graves. 

When they returned Harold found a lot of well- 
dressed negroes awaiting him, friends of Abel Kurtz. 
The old man introduced Harold to the assemblage 
with great and unctuous pride, as sincere as it was 
effusive. The black had long ago accustomed himself 
to these homely greetings, and had become inured 
to the inspection and admiration which he invariably 
evoked. He, perhaps, never forgot that he had 
once shone in the salon of a Mme. de Salecy, but 
entered into the spirit of his bitter surroundings with 
ingenuous pleasantry. 

There were several of the most elect negro families 
present. One person, a pilot and a mulatto, essayed 
to be particularly witty and engaging. He told a good 
tale with gusto and kept the table in a roar. It tran- 
spired that he was in love with Emily Kurtz, who had 
already refused him twice. But the good-natured 
pilot was in no way put out. It was evident that 
he still thought his chances good to win the woman 
of his choice. After supper Abel Kurtz brought out 
some really excellent cigars. Abel lived well. 



HAROLD. 



171 



One of the company volunteered to tell a story. 
The narrator was an educated mulatto, lately a graduate 
of one of the great negro universities in the South. 
He was a physician, and told the following story with 
much pathos and quiet humor. 

THE STORY OF MESSIAH. 

Messiah (he began) was a negro of the old regime. 
When the fighting in his part of Mississippi was all 
over, Messiah, two black wenches and little black 
Pete were the only slaves left on the plantation. 

When the master of the plantation was sure that 
the war was really over, the South whipped and him- 
self ruined, he suddenly disappeared, after bequeathing 
his property to his nieces ; and it became currently 
rumored that he had shot himself through the head. 

Messiah was a pretty old man then, and was known 
for miles around as a born musician. When the old 
man got his banjo down from its peg and began 
a-thrummin', there was pretty sure to be listeners. 
Messiah would have been worth a small fortune in the 
l^orth, friends of his master used to say. 

Well, 'Siah was pretty old now, and he had been a 
slave of the dead master all his life and part of his 
master's father before him. So when he heard the 
old slave-driver was dead, he forgot all the beatings, 
and all the thrashings, and all the stringings-up he 
had got from him, and bowed down and cried as if 

Note. — The Story of Messiah is a genuine piece of folk-lore. 
It is quite distinct from the story, and it is here introduced in 
order to depict the " old-time negro," or the " negro of ante-bel- 
lum days." — The Author. 



172 



HAROLD. 



his heart would break. The two wenches were rather 
attached to Uncle 'Siah, and tried to comfort him, but 
it was no use. 

" lie done been a good, kind marster to me, honeys, 
I's alone in the world now, shore !" he would say. 

Shortly afterward the girls went away and married. 
Nobody bought the estate, and so for a time 'Siah and 
little Pete were permitted to occupy it unmolested, 
and might have done so for many years, while the 
timbers in the old mansion rotted away and the acres 
went to waste. 

Regularly, as he had done every Sunday morn- 
ing for years past, 'Siah would put on the old black 
frock-coat which had once belonged to Marster, and 
leading little Pete by one arm and toting his be- 
loved banjo in the other, would sally over to the 
village, which was five miles distant, to attend church. 
When the services in the house of God were over, 
which w T as usually about noon, Messiah would strike 
a bee-line for Cap'n Hunt's place, on the hill, to 
play for the great folks assembled there. Mar'sr 
Hunt was nearly, if not quite as old as the old darky 
himself, but he always declared up to the day of his 
death that there was nobody who could play the ban jo 
like 'Siah. When 'Siah's master had sent himself 
where thousands of his neighbors had been sent by 
the Yankees during the cruel war, Cap'n Hunt had 
offered the old man a home, but Messiah said : 

" No ; I lak to live heah, Mars'r Hunt, but I done 
kaint leave de old place. De ol 5 man ain't long here 
nohow, and he gwine sooner if he leave home." 

And so he came tramping over every week, as he had 



HAROLD. 



173 



done for forty years, to thrum for the servants and the 
visitors, and the old master, most of all, on the Hunt 
plantation. And the cap'n saw that Messiah and his 
little protege, Pete, were well provided for and never 
went hungry. As the months slipped by 'Siah be- 
came more and more convinced that his late Marster 
(who, to tell the truth, was a heartless, cold-blooded 
wretch, even to his betters) was as good a gentleman 
as had ever lived and a paragon of mercy and ami- 
ability. In the daytime he would busy himself hoe- 
ing a little corn patch he cultivated back of the man- 
sion or tending the neglected flower-beds. "When 
evening came and the sun was just going down, Han- 
nah, the cook on the adjoining plantation, would send 
him over his supper, which he would share with Pete, 
and then the two would sit out and watch the great 
orb slowly sink behind the hills in perfect peace and 
contentment. At this moment, every evening, Pete 
would say : " Uncle 'Siah, kin I fotch it now ?" 

66 Hoi' on a minit, honey. Sh' ain't done sot yit. 
Nev' kin play 'cep'n Sundays 'till de sun sots right 
down behin' de trees." Then he would say : " Run, 
chile, fotch 'er, fotch 'er, turn turn. Massy sakes, 
how de music jes' ooze out'n de ol' man's fingers! 
I kin feel it— turn — turn — all a-runnin' up 'n' down 
my naik 'n' backbone. 'Pears lak it most got to 
come out somehow. Hand it yere, hon'," continued 
'Siah. 

" There wuz a ol' nigger who couldn't leave de home, 
Turn — turn — ty — turn — turn, 
And all de ol' folkses ast him fo' to room, 
Turn — turn — ty — turn — turn ; 



174 



HAROLD. 



But de marster done died, and de nigger had ter stay, 
An* de white 'un and de niggers er couldn't draig him away, 
Turn — tum — ty — tum — turn. ' ' 

"Pete!" 

" Yes, Uncle 'Siah," said the little pickaninny. 
" You ain't done forgot what I tol' yer about 
Marster?" 

" Mars' r Hunt, uncle ?" 

" Look heah, chile," said Messiah, with a tinge of 
sternness in his voice, " yaint but one Marster what 
I tells yo' about he dead. Mars'r Runt, he a good 
man, he a smart man, he seen a heap o' trouble, 
Mars'r Hunt. Yes, an' lie a good man, and he a 
pow'ful rich man ; but Mars'r Hunt ain't Marster. 
Yo 5 Uncle 'Siah er free nigger now, and dey hain't 
but one Marster fo' dis yere me and he. Whar am he, 
Pete, boy ?" 

" A-sittin' at the right hand of God, Unc' 'Siah," 
replied Pete, solemnly, and with a kind of awe. 

The old darky had taught him to say this. Mes- 
siah leaned his body back, and holding his beloved 
banjo partly in his lap and partly resting on the 
ground, looked long and fixedly at the firmament. 

" 'Pears to me, honey, 1 kin see Marster a-sittin' 
up there by de side ob de Lawd. Look mighty 
peart, I reckon, with his white angel's wings on and 
his long black hair a-flowin' over his sho'ders, an' — - 

" I dream I see a angel bright, 
Rise up, Moses, rise up ; 
With flappin' wings and garments white, 

Bise up, Moses, rise up ; 
And the angel says, says he, ter me, 
Rise up, 'Siah, lise up ; 



HAROLD. 



175 



I's a gwine to carry you 'long with me, 
Kise up, Moses, rise up, " 

" Dere's one ol' song I haben't sung since marster 
died. Reckon I ain't done iorgot it, honey." 

Messiah had been so absorbed in his song and his 
preceding rapt meditations, that he was entirely ob- 
livious of the fact that Pete had curled up his little 
black legs on the stoop and gone to sleep. The old 
man laid down the banjo and picked Pete up tenderly 
and laid him on his cot inside the cabin. 

" Done tol' that chile he worked too much t'-day. 
Ain't qF enuff yit to tote plants lak a growed up 
nigger. It done tired me, too, powerful. Now, 
what was I — hope I haben't disremembered it. Oh, 
yes— 

" There wuz an old nigger, and his name was Uncle Ned, 

There's one more ribber to' ter cross ; 
And he had no mo' wool on de top of his head, 

There's one more ribber fo' ter cross. 
Uncle Ned he went to de edge ob de stream, 

There's—" 

Just as he got to the first word of the refrain a 
strange black figure emerged from the darkness. It 
was so much darker than the night itself that Messiah 
had no difficulty in discerning it fully. It was black 
from head to foot, and with a strange sensation of 
awe and amazement 'Siah saw that two dusky wings 
projected from each of its shoulder-blades. 

" Uncle 'Siah," says a deep, hollow voice, such as 
'Siah had heard tell of in graveyards.- 

The old man was so frightened he couldn't answer. 
His tongue clove resolutely to the roof of his mouth. 



176 



HAROLD. 



" 'Si ah, do yon hear me talking to you ?" 

44 Who — who is yo 5 V 5 whispers 'Siah, trembling 
all over his old decrepit body. 

" "What ! Don't you know your old Marster, 'Siah ? 
I am your old Marster, 'Siah, before God." 

If the apparition had declared himself to be one of 
the celestial cherubim or the devil himself outright, 
Messiah would have believed him ; but to assert that 
he was the ghost of the late worshipped and lamented 
old slave-driver was a strain upon the old nigger's 
credulity which even his terror could not bolster up. 
So 'Siah plucked up and answered : 

" Who dat say he my Marster ? Who dat say he 
my Marster ? 'Pears to me I heah er lot about young 
an' wuthless niggers tryin' ter scar' 'spectable folkses. 
Who done say he my Marster ?" 

At this the shade came a step nearer, and, sure 
enough, old 'Siah saw his master's long hair and 
master's scarred cheek, and everything about master 
but his white skin. The apparition was black all 
over. 

" 'Siah, do you recognize me now ? Are you glad 
to see your old master ?" 

But 'Siah was still unconvinced. 

44 Wha' dem two t'ings a-stickin' out'n yo' back ?" 

44 Those are wings, 'Siah ; I use them to fly with 
up in heaven.' ' 

'Siah forgot himself so far as to say : 

44 Go 'long, chile ; whaSer yo' try to conjure and 
fool dis yere ol' — why, yo' black — angel ?" 

Instead of replying to 'Siah's taunting query, the 
figure bent a look of reproach upon the old darky, 



HAROLD. 



177 



and, coolly flapping his wings, began to mount in the 
air before 'Sialics astonished eyes. 

44 Lord hab mercy !" shrieked 'Siah. u Come back, 
angel, come back ! I's on'y a ol', broke-down, no- 
account nigger. I didn't mean ter doubt yo'. Come 
back, angel !" 

The apparition descended again. 

i% Do you believe me now, 'Siah ?" 

'Siah hesitated. 

" If yo' is my Marster fo' shore, how yo' comes so 
black?" 

" Because 1 used to beat you, 'Siah, and the Lord 
punished me for it. He says that as long as old 'Siah 
plays a banjo I have got to be black. And the Lord 
loves a banjo mighty well, 'Siah." 

" Shore enuft, honey?" asked 'Siah, delightedly. 

u He dotes on it. When I came up to get into 
heaven I couldn't get in, because the Lord said I 
shouldn't have beat Uncle 'Siah that played the banjo 
so well. Finally the Lord let me into the gates of 
Paradise, but He turned me black until Uncle 'Siah 
lays down the. old banjo, never to take it up no more." 

u Why is yo' come ter night, Marster V ' said 'Siah, 
after a pause. 

" Because you played the old tune that you played 
when 1 gave you that awful beating back of the 
smoke-house, when I heard the Yankees were comin'. 
I been a- waiting a long time for you to play that, but 
you never did do it until to-night. Do you believe 
me now ?" 

" What night was dat, Marster ?" said 'Siah. 

" On a Saturday night, 'Siah ; I'll never forget it." 



178 



HAROLD. 



" Bress de Lawd ! Hallelujah ! Tou'se my Mars- 
ter, shore/' 5 exclaimed the old man in a transport. 
" Saturday night it was, shore, 'cause 1 had ter go to 
bed, yo' licked me so hard. Couldn't play for Mars'r 
Hunt Sunday mo'ning. You'se Marster." 

With these ejaculations the joyful darky ran to 
embrace the old slave-driver, only to find that he had 
vanished into thin air. 'Siah heard the wind sighing 
through the pines and saw the stars twinkling over- 
head, but no trace of his master could he find any- 
where. Weeks passed by, and 'Siah never touched 
his beloved banjo, except when he went to play and 
sing at Mars'r Hunt's. He became more rigorously 
pious than ever, and spent his time star-gazing and 
wondering what Marster was doing up in heaven, and 
thinking what dreadful punishment the Lord had 
visited upon him. 

One evening, after little Pete had gone to bed, 
Aunt Charlotte came over to visit Unc' 'Siah from 
the adjoining plantation. 

" 'Pears to me lion 1 , yo' lookin' mighty bad. 
Yo' haben't had a chill, hab yo' ? You'se gettin' 
mighty oP, unc'. Does yo' eat all I sends over to 
yo' ?" 

" .Reckon I does, Sha'lott. Nuffin 5 de matter 
wif me, 1 tells yo'. How's missy, Sha'lott ?" 

" Poorly, Unc' 'Siah, poorly. Doctor say she be 
all right presently, though. Pete a-growin' inter a 
great big chile, shore, eh, unc' ? Well, I gotter go, 
lion'. I gwine to give 'em all yo' love. Good-by, 
Uncle 'Siah, and tak' good care yourself." 

A sudden inspiration seized 'Siah when Charlotte 



HAKOLD. 



179 



was gone to take down the old banjo from where it 
had hung every week-day since his old Marster's visit. 
To tell the truth, 'Siah had literally been afraid to 
touch it except in the presence of company. The 
sight of the great black angel was too much for his 
nerves. But to-night, the first thing he knew, he was 
thrummin' away for dear life. 

" I'd lak ter stand on Jordan's brink, 

There's one more ribber fo' ter cross ; 
And face ter face ol' Peter t'ank, 

There's one mo' ribber fo' ter cross. 
I never knowed where de Lawd ter find, 

There's one mo' ribber fo' ter cross ; 
He lef oY Peter far behin', 

There's — ' ' 

" 'Siah !' ' said a voice behind him. 

'Siah had heard the wings of the angel fluttering, 
but he did not look round. 

" Yes, Marster, I heah yo'," said Messiah, without 
turning his head and keeping the strings of the instru- 
ment still a-thrumming. 

" Are you going to stop, Uncle 'Siah ?" 

" Kaint do it, Marster," replied 'Siah, without 
turning around. 

" I's er-gwine to sit on Zion's mount, 
And drink salvation from de fount, 
There's one mo' ribber fo' ter cross, 
One mo' ribber, one mo' ribber fo' ter cross." 

" 'Siah, I have come back — " 

" De Lawd be praised !" exclaimed 'Siah. 

" And when I got to de top ob de hill 
I saw oF Aaron—" 



180 



HAROLD. 



" I have come back, 'Siah, to ask a favor of you. 
I used to beat you mighty hard, 'Siah." 

'Siah wheeled round in his excitement and faced 
the angel. 

" Who done say so? Didn't hardly feel it. Is 
yo' really sorry, Marster ?" 

" I am powerfully sorry, 'Siah. Recollect when I i 
got you down in the wood-pile and pounded your head 
between the pine sticks ?" 

' ' La' yes, Marster. " 

" Have you forgotten when I made Cuffee string 
you up to the beam end and gave you thirty lashes ?" 

" Forty, Marster," said 'Siah, rubbing his back at 
the mere recollection. " Bat, Marster, what's de 
favor yo' want o' me, Marster V ' 

The ghost of the slave-driver hesitated a mo ^ent 
and then said : 

" I want you to go into the house and get my old 
snake lash. When you get it, lay it over my back as 
hard as ever you can until I hollows for you to quit ! 
Do you hear me, 'Siah ?" 

Messiah stared in astonishment. 

" I nebber could do dat, dear Marster," he said. 

" Then I'll be obliged to stay black ever so long," 
declared the apparition. " I thought I could depend 
on you, 'Siah." 

The old darky hesitated even before this heart-rend- 
ing appeal. Such an exploit flavored strongly of the 
diabolical rather than the celestial. It was a trifle 
more than he had the fortitude to face. But, then, 
Messiah had been brought up to stand in fear and 
quaking of the Almighty wrath, and he knew that 



HAROLD. 



181 



when the Lord decreed there was no rise grumbling. 
If the Lord was willing to forego any further punish- 
ment on the part of 'Siah's master through any act of 
'Siah's, it would be a sin to refuse to let his master 
suffer. 

" It's dreadful dark and spook-like in de oV house, 
Mars' r Ghost," said 'Siah. " Ts clar afraid ter fotch 
dat lash. 'Sides, I's shore I never could find it in de 
world, Marster." 

While 'Siah said this he was revolving in his mind 
all the beatings Marster had spoken of, and the more 
he thought of them the more his present fear seemed 
to fade dimly away. 'Siah was now an instrument of 
the Lord. This was a very comforting and fortifying 
reflection. What other incentives and reflections lay 
at the bottom of his sudden change of spirit are per- 
haps better conjectured. With a little more parley 
with the shade of the late lamented planter, Messiah 
was off into the house, and after a lapse of a few 
moments returned with the long snake lash, which, 
indeed, was properly so named. 

" Lemme see, 'Siah," said the master. " Are you 
sure this is the whip ? Looks mighty long and big." 

As he cast his eye over the lash's sinister propor- 
tions the shade shuddered. 

" Dat's de oP lash, Marster." 

The shade took it in his own hands and shuddered 
again. 

" Lordy-me ! why, it's at least two feet longer than 
it used to be." 

Messiah actually grinned. He had lost all fear 
now. 



183 



HAROLD. 



" Might hab growed, Marster." 

The ghost seemed preoccupied. 

u See here, 'Siah, I forgot what I told you. The 
Lord said — Did I tell you to lay it on — ?" 

" As hard and powerful as I kin, marster. Oh, 
dat dis nigger had nebber been bo'n !" 

As a matter of fact, 'Siah was quite cheerful at this 
particular moment. It did not promise to be such a 
bad thing, this serving the King. 

In the meantime the angel had been busy removing 
his wings, an operation which, until his late master 
reassured him, 'Siah observed with returning alarm. 

"'Siah, I've been a-thinkin' that — that you had 
better lay it on light at first, and when you see me 
getting white, for God's sake let me know. Let's 
stand out where the moon can touch us." 

Messiah now began to tremble again. He was 
really so frightened at the bare thought of using the 
lash on his master's body, that he was about to fall 
on his knees and beg off, when he happened to think 
how the wicked old slave-driver had once clipped off 
a piece of his ear with this selfsame weapon. This 
was an indignity which no respectable nigger could 
bear. 

" Marster, where will you have the fust crack ?" 

" I'm ready now, 'Siah. The Lord's will be done ! 
Hallelujah to the Host ! Right across the shoulders, 
'Siah. Glory to the Lamb !" 

'Siah drew off, snapped the long lash into a sinister 
ophidian coil in mid-air, and brought it down rather 
mildly upon his Marster's bared shoulder blades. 

" Ouch ! Yah ! Lord ! Ooooff— " 



HAROLD. 



183 



The late planter danced and capered about in the 
weird moonlight as if a thousand darts had been sud- 
denly lanced into his flesh. 

"Go on, 'Siah. Have it over quick! Ouch! 
Ooof ! God in heaven ! Yah — h — h ! Roohh ! 

Errrrrrrh ! Oh h — h ! Mercy, Lord, mercy ! 

Yah— h— h !" 

'Siah was now getting thoroughly warmed to his 
strange task, and the way he made that whip fly was 
wondrous to behold. 

" Am I getting white, 'Siah ?" 

" Not yit, marster," yelled back the old negro. 

" Am 1 getting white now, 'Siah ?" 

66 You'se — er — er — gittin' — brighter — honey,'' re- 
plied 'Siah, between breaths. 

The old planter's shrieks seemed to excite the old 
man more and more. The great beating he got once 
for losing a hoe, the thrashing he received one Christ- 
mas Eve because Sis forgot to light the Marster's 
fire, the time Marster pushed him down-stairs and 
broke his arm — all came vividly back to his memory 
and added fresh sinews to his arm. His late Marster 
fairly shrieked in agony. 

" Am — 1 — getting — whiter — 'Siah ?" he yelled. 

'Siah looked, and sure enough his Marster's skin 
was really undergoing a change. 

" Yes, Marster — you a mulatto !" 

" Praise the Lord ! Hallelujah ! Ooooff ! Am 
— I—a — quadroon yet, 'Siah?" 

u Love de Lamb ! Hallelujah ! Most a quadroon, 
Marster," shrieked 'Siah. 

" Am — I — oooff — a quadroon yet, Unc' 'Siah ?" 



184 



HAROLD. 



" Hallelujah ! Praise de King ! Mary and Martha 
a-callin', Glory t' de Lamb ! Keep her up, honey ! 
Now, yon'se a-got'er ! Keep er up, chile !" 

'Siah had fallen into a merciless pendulum swing, 
and gave vent to ejaculations peculiar to negroes when 
chopping wood or performing any regular resonant 
exercise. 

His master was fairly choked with pain. 

" Hoi' on, 'Siah. Gimme a rest, 'Siah ! Ouch ! 
Gr— rr! Yah— hh ! Hoi' on, 'Siah. For God's 
sake, hoi' on !" 

" Kaint stop now, Marster. Kaint go fo' to do 
hit ! 'Member de wood-pile ! Martha and er Mary ! 
Er black a pickaninny ! Pickin' on de banjo! Don't 
you quit, honey !" 

All at once Marster sank on his knees, and 'Siah 
could see by the moonlight that his skin was now quite 
the color of an octoroon. With his poor flayed back 
Marster was fast resolving into insensibility. Mes- 
siah tried to stop, but he might as well have tried to 
prevent the wind from blowing through the pines. 
Faster and faster fell the blows, and whiter and whiter 
grew his master. Noisier and noisier became the 
breeze, and lighter and lighter became the landscape. 

When the sun came up a party of negro farm- 
hands, passing through the woods, found the old 
darkey leaning breathless over the corpse of a white 
man, who turned out to be none other than Mars'r 
Williams, who had disappeared some months before. 
'Siah had strayed out in his sleep, it was supposed, 
and accidentally come across the body. Kind hands 
picked the old darky up, and were for carrying him 



HAROLD. 



185 



back to his old home ; but Messiah showed such signs 
of terror that they carried him over to Mars' r Hunt's. 
'Siah never played the banjo any more and never 
told the story to any one but black Pete, to whom he 
turned over the once beloved instrument. 

I have the banjo now T , and my name was once only 
Pete, 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



" Let fools do good and fair man call for grace : 
Aaron will have his soul black like his face.'" 

— Titus Andronicus. 

During the progress of this tale of folk-lore the 
honest pilot's inamorata excused herself, her sisters 
alleging that she went upstairs merely to mope. 

Later in the evening her mother sent for her to 
perform something for the company on the piano, 
upon which instrument, it was proved, she could exe- 
cute some very pretty selections and with spirit. Soon 
after the girl's playing was finished the party broke 
up. Harold and his host remained out on the back 
porch to smoke and chat. 

During their talk, which ran chiefly upon political 
rather than personal matters, as being the tie which 
bound the two men most closely together, the old man 
had been revolving a very pretty idea in his head. 

His eldest daughter to all appearances was likely to 
pursue her path through life unwedded, notwithstand- 
ing the fact that her father had as much, if not more 
property than any black in Charleston. He was not 
ready to part with any portion of it, however, to the 
first negro that came along. Here, it seemed to him, 
was a chance to make himself popular with his race, by 
allying his beloved Basie to a full-blooded black man, 
and to have the pleasure of counting such a refined and 



HAROLD, 



187 



intelligent person as Harold one of the family. He 
thought with a satisfied grin that the same idea had 
occurred to Basie herself in the course of the day. 
He had noticed her particularly attentive to his guest, 
and more than once he fancied he had detected Har- 
old smiling blandly upon her. The fact was, Kurtz's 
eldest daughter was lively and talkative, and Harold 
.stood in need of the benefit derived from just such 
talents. He needed information. This could hardly 
be called an understanding, certainly there was little 
that was mutual about it ; but old Abel was smitten 
with the idea of a possible alliance, and determined 
to keep Harold in the house as long as he could be 
induced to stay. The more Abel saw of his guest, 
the more . he was pleased at the prospect of marrying 
him off to one of his daughters. 

It was the old man's custom to sit out on th'e porch 
with his pipe until the cathedral clock rang midnight. 
Harold, therefore, excused himself and went alone 
upstairs to his room. Several days passed. The 
guest decided to trespass no longer on the hospitality 
of his friends. He had studied the city. His great 
desire after seeing the city was to visit the habitations 
of his race in the country. Indeed, it was to see the 
negro of the cabin that he had come South. 

But one evening he surprised Emily Kurtz in the 
sitting-room looking over the books in the neat walnut 
case. He had wanted to know more about this girl, 
but it seemed as if she purposely eluded both his gaze 
and his society. She was by far the most comely of 
Kurtz's daughters. Most negro women are exquis- 
itely modelled, and Emily had this physical trait in 



188 



HAROLD. 



perfection. She was even duskier than her two sis- 
ters, but her eye was brighter and her black tresses 
heavier. But Harold did not think of this. As was 
his custom, he spoke very freely to her when he had 
first made the girl communicative. 

" I should think you would marry," he said, among 
other things. 

" Never !" returned the girl. 

Harold was interested at once in her vehemence. 

" Ah, then you intended to at one time V J 

" No ; not since I was a mere child have I had such 
an intention." 

u You are very strange." 

" I am a negress," the girl returned, almost simply 
— simply, if it were possible that any one could consider 
such an extraordinary reply as partaking of simplicity. 

Harold did not notice the look she bent upon him. 
He momentarily forgot. 

" You could have married the pilot," he persisted. 

" Who says so?" 

u Your father told me so." 

" Yery well. I would have died first." 

" Died first ?" Harold stared at the girl in astonish- 
ment. " Why ?" 

" I am a negress, he is a negro ; but I have stayed 
to talk long enough !" 

There was a peculiar cast in the girl's eyes as she 
spoke, which the young man now noted for the first 
time — distress, deceit, or malevolence, he could not 
distinguish which. Emily turned to leave the room. 
Harold stood before the door with a half-appealing 
look in his eyes. 



HAROLD. 



189 



" Pardon me, Miss Kurtz," lie said, quite gently; 
" you do not understand me. For a week you have 
been a puzzle which I have tried to solve. You must 
tell me all. You must, indeed. ' ' 

The negress sat down again. So did Harold. 

" What must I tell you ?" she asked. 

" Why, about yourself. Perhaps I can help you. 
Perhaps I already understand you. Perhaps I have 
suffered like you, but I must be sure. You do not 
hate the pilot, do you ?" 

" No ; on the contrary, I — " 

The black girl seemed to have become greatly 
moved since she had seated herself. She who was so 
ordinarily passive and silent seemed to thaw into 
responsiveness under Harold's glance. Five minutes 
ago she answered wearily as one who had been aroused 
from a sound sleep. Then her annoyance seemed to 
fade, and she nervously chafed her eyelids as if a spec- 
tacle had presented itself, the reality of which she 
was not so sure. She was now thoroughly awake. 
No actress could have done the thing better. 

" Well, on the contrary, you — " 

u I hate him less than any negro I know." 

The word negro jarred on Harold in this instance. 
She pronounced it " nigra," after the fashion of all 
educated Southerners. It had a contemptuous ring to 
it, much as if a white girl had spoken of her adorer 
as the American, the German, the Irishman. Why 
this sinister emphasis of the man's race over the man's 
self ? he thought. But it pleased him to think at 
last he was getting at the mystery of this girl's life. 

" Wait," he said. " I want you to speak to me 



190 



HAROLD. 



freely. If you wish it, no one shall ever know that 
which passes between us. 53 

A shadow of a haughty smile flickered across the 
negress's face. 

6 6 1 should never have spoken at all had I thought 
otherwise/' she said. 

" Have you, then, met with some great grief, some 
sorrow because of your race ? Tell me all, as a 
brother." 

" As a brother ! Were you brother, sister, father, 
and mother rolled in one, you could be no more to 
me than you are. Do not start!" Harold had in- 
voluntarily risen. " I will answer your question. It 
is a great relief, after all, to open one's mouth to 
something besides trees and rocks and animals. You 
ask if I have met with some great sorrow. I sup- 
pose it was a sorrow once, but a callus has grown 
over it since the first shock. I can explain it sim- 
ply. My skin is black, my equals — the only equals 
I recognize — refer to me as a ' nigger.' Is not that 
enough V ' 

Harold had intuitively grasped the speaker s mean- 
ing before she had uttered the first twelve words. A 
pang flashed through his heart as he saw his own life 
for five years mirrored up to him. He wondered if 
there were any more such sensitive souls who, isolated 
by education, had learned to despise their race. Per- 
haps the South held thousands such. This thought 
sickened him. 

" You need not say more," he said, hastily; U I 
understand you ; I pity and sympathize with you ; 
but have you never thought yourself cowardly in not 



HAROLD. 



191 



fighting such thoughts ? Suppose you had been born 
a mere dumb brute ?" 

" Ah, well, say rather had been born a man ! I 
could have found something to do to better my kind 
and reconcile me to it. Perhaps if I had been a 
man, though black, I should have transferred my hate 
to the white race, as you have done, 5 ? 

Harold started and turned pale under his sable skin, 
as if a thunderbolt had just struck him. This woman 
had just put into words what he had scarce dared put 
into thoughts. 

" I— I !" he fairly gasped. 

" Still I doubt if I should change places with you," 
the negress went on. " With you the shock of your 
blood came later in life, and it will not end till it con- 
sumes you body and soul. You can never get over 
it. An archangel cast down into hell is not likely to 
go about doing good deeds forever. That is where 
you made your great mistake in not marrying Mildred 
Markham. ' ' 

Harold leaped from his seat this time. 

" My God, you must be a sorceress 1 Tell me at 
once what you mean by that !" 

It was a peculiarity of Kurtz's middle daughter that 
she nevor laughed. Sometimes a smile's shadow 
illumined her eyes and mouth. It did so now. 

" Hush ! my mother upstairs will hear you. To 
begin with, I ransacked your trunk." 

"You—" 

66 Oh, yes ; I read most of your papers and all 
your letters when you were out yesterday. To be still 
more frank, 1 purposely arranged {his meeting merely 



192 



HAROLD. 



to talk to perhaps the only human being — if we are 
human beings, indeed — in the universe who could 
understand me. I am convinced of that." 

Harold sat down amazed, yet enlightened. His 
first impulse was one of indignation, if not disgust ; 
but then it occurred to him that nothing Emily might 
know concerning his history or plans would injure 
him or (from what he now divined) be disseminated. 
His next impulse was to say : 

" But do you not know when you ransacked my 
trunk you were a criminal ?" 

" What of that. I knew you and the consequences 
also." 

" But your conscience— 55 

" "What ! Ah, that is the only immunity I have, 
Harold Bright — freedom from conscience. I have no 
moral nature. Nothing that I can commit, if it be 
voluntary, affects me in any way. Fortunately I am 
pretty well subdued and not rapacious. Besides, I 
should hate to be caught doing anything which would 
send me to prison." 

" But how do you live ?" Harold mumbled, as if 
he had put the question to himself. ci How do you 
keep the secret ? Does not everybody despise you ?" 

Again the negress half smiled. 

" No ; because I live in the world of books; be- 
cause I go about all day as if under the influence of 
some narcotic ; because I never show myself as you 
now see me, nor let myself be heard as you now hear ; 
because I do not give them an opportunity. Some 
day, if I get too much aroused, I shall try opium as a 
venture, The only raason 1 do not have to commit 



IIAHOLD. 



193 



crime, to steal, and even murder, is, because with a 
well-to-do parent there is no necessity for it. 5 ' 

Harold shuddered. He saw the curse of race in 
more glaring colors than he had ever thought possible. 
And yet this girl had said that she would not change 
places with him. He longed to learn what she knew 
about others ; he would have liked to know if she, 
like himself, was an exception. 

Emily must have divined his thoughts. 

" You are wondering," said the girl, " if I am but 
one of a hundred other such in Charleston, who carry 
around a white man's sensibilities in a black man's 
brain. Perhaps they keep their secret as well if not 
better than I do mine, but I think there are none 
among my acquaintances. It is because they are more 
blunted or less choice, or, perhaps, have been led to 
read less and look at things differently from what 
I have done." 

"When Harold arose and left the room, he did so 
with a sickening sensation, as of something gnawing 
at the vitals of conscience. His whole manhood arose 
in revolt at the thought which entered his brain, that 
the girl was right ; that, being a leper outside the 
pale, she was justitied in freeing herself from Cauca- 
sian morality and its attendant obligations. At supper 
he ate little, because he was too miserable to eat. Abel 
Kurtz never was so jocose. He laughed and talked 
clear through the repast. On the back porch, that same 
evening, Harold repeated his former decision to bid 
his host good-by the next day. Abel made as if he 
would not hear of it. He laughed and said he thought 
Harold was in a mighty hurry. 



194 



HAROLD. 



" 'Pears to me a downright pity yo 5 don't settle 
down, Mr. Bright ; reckon you are most too modest 
with the women-folks. Now," continued Abel, 
puffing at his pipe, " I been a- thinking it all over, 
and jes' come to the conclusion you'd make a right 
smart husband fer my eldest daughter. I reckon, 
Mr. Bright, she thinks a heap of you, and I reckon, 
perhaps, you think er heap of each other. Now," 
continued the caterer, even more earnestly, " yo' ought 
to live in Charleston, you really ought, an' if — " 

It would be hard to say which of the two emotions 
Harold tolerated the most, amusement or anger. He 
rose from his chair, and going over close to his black 
host, shook hands with him gravely. 

" Keep your Basie, my dear friend. Let us not 
talk any more about it." 

" Lord, you engaged ! I done told Betty 1 feared 
you were engaged." 

Abel's face fell as he saw his hopes shattered into 
a million pieces ; but his was a buoyant nature. The 
grin came back as he released his hands and looked 
up to see his companion's smile. 

"Yes," answered Harold, absently; "I am en- 
gaged." 

And the next day it came to pass that Harold Bright 

had packed his few chattels together, and by noon 

; was off into the distant rice-fields, 
i 



CHAPTER XXY1I. 



" Ye meD of Athens, hear me !" 

Just over the pine-trees of an interminable wood 
ascended the white curling smoke of a collection of 
fifty cabins. It could scarce be called an opening 
where they were, for the huge pines grew close to the 
sides of the rude habitations, and it was plain that 
with a clearing would come an absence of protection 
from the elements. In this part of the State it takes 
a good roof (these and such as these out of the ques- 
tion) to withstand the rays of the summer sun and the 
eternal rain-drops of winter. Three hundred souls 
existed in this place, but they were now away in the 
fields working for their weekly pittance of a peck of 
corn, a few slices of bacon, and a jug of molasses. 
It rarely varies, this stipend. Its recipients are not 
likely to squander away their substance in riotous 
living. 

Albeit not all away, for a few aged negresses 
moved busily inside the huts, and a bevy of black 
pickaninnies gambolled unmeaningly in the sunshine. 
It was now November, and there were few enough 
dry days in which to play out-of-doors. 

Standing in the shadow of the trees, with the light 
of afternoon flickering fitfully through' the swaying 
pines, was the solitary figure of Harold on horseback. 
He had drawn up from the narrow roadside without 



196 



HAROLD. 



making the slightest noise, and stood stock-still while 
contemplating the group. If one could read the 
thoughts that stirred behind the black mask he wore ! 

The rider's horse gnawed at the branches of an ad- 
jacent shrub. The little black children played on. 

" What if I was once like that ?" Perhaps Har- 
old's thoughts ran like this : " Yes ; why ask ? I was 
once like that. What crime should I not commit in 
taking one of these tiny wretches away from his play 
and thrusting him into the fetters of a civilization 
false to him, false to everybody to whom it owes a being. 
If I murdered him, it would be a trifle compared to 
this deed, How he and his little playmates wallow 
in their self-satisfaction ! All the pleasures and pas- 
sions, all the desires and miseries, all the vanities and 
tumults — what will he ever tell of these ? Mind is 
closed to him unless the humanitarian — his ten times 
murderer — wrests from him his bliss and gives him in 
return the demon of self -consciousness. We are satis- 
fied in our ignorance, and they give us a new set of 
susceptibilities, that the torture of our ignominy may 
be more exquisitely felt. They hand us our certifi- 
cate of freedom and then coolly put us in irons. Oh, 
yes ; as for me, I can afford to look down upon these 
little brutes. Alas ! nobody is likely to experiment 
with them" 

As for him,- Harold Bright, declassee, miserable, 
leper ; as for him, not now despondent, uneasy, cower- 
ing, but fast growing into a vindictive — as for him 
(to leave this train of musing), he alighted from his 
horse, and deliberately walking to the nearest cabin, 
knocked on the door. 



HAROLD. 



197 



It was answered by an old and wizened black 
woman, who gave him welcome. 

Harold passed two nights in this rude settlement, 
among the most primitive of his own race he had ever 
seen or known. They all felt that he was superior 
to them, but if they had been asked they could hardly 
have told why. The negro of the rice-fields has but 
two standards of social excellence, white and black. 
He was black, as black as they. He went into the 
fields and saw them work from dawn almost until it 
was too dark to see, and then Harold mounted his 
horse and went away again. The mere sight of him 
might have harmed these people, if they were not so 
trodden down into the sink of solitude and isolation 
from the world. As it was, it was merely an epoch 
in their lives, to be talked about by them for many a 
long day afterward. 

The city of Columbia lay fifteen miles away, and 
having started at noon, he reached that city, which he 
had left three days previously, a little before night- 
fall. Harold's stay in the little gloomy capital had 
been nearly a repetition of the days he had spent in 
Charleston, save that the society pleased him slightly 
more. Here he found doctors, lawyers, and even 
journalists of his own race. Romulus Sleight, a mulatto 
physician, with a fair practice and a reputation for 
skill, was his host during his stay at Columbia. But 
Harold fancied, as he now rode along, that even he, 
successful as he was, like the others, tried to hide his 
discontent in politics. It was hate of the white man 
that animated him, too. Sleight's own brother had 
been shot down by a white mob, and he himself had 



198 



HAROLD. 



received more u warnings" than he could count on 
his finger-ends. 

" They tell me not to interfere and I shall be let 
alone, but I have a right to do it, and I will exercise 
the right till they hang me up and riddle me, too. 
Simply because I ain't white is no reason why I can't 
have my rights." 

That was the way he reasoned. He was like a 
horde more who were to pay the penalty for this 
singularly misguided way of thinking. 

Now the shadows were sinking deep over all as 
Harold re-entered the city. He thought the streets 
looked "unnaturally dark as he wended his way through 
them. It occurred to him that the street lamps had 
not yet been lit. He had been several days in the 
city, but it seemed to him that he had never noticed 
it so quiet at this hour. There was absolutely no soul 
■upon the streets. The trot of his horse was the only 
sound that struck his ear, even as he traversed the 
city's main thoroughfare. Strange, he thought. 
Harold headed the animal down the inclined avenue 
leading to the dwelling of the doctor with a feeling 
of mistrust. His strange fears and presentiments were 
not altogether groundless. 

Half-way down the thoroughfare, a lad he had often 
remarked about the house of Romulus Sleight came 
dashing along the sidewalk to meet him, crying to 
Harold as he did so to stop. Harold drew in his rein, 
and in the calmest manner he could assume asked 
what was the matter. 

" Doctor Sleight— Bob— turn back to de lef !" 



HAROLD. 



199 



gasped the young negro, excitedly. " White man's 
mob — I'm sent to tell you." 
Q i Amoir 

Like a flash his horse was wheeled round, so that 
the animal fairly reared on its hind quarters. 

" Eape — He never done it— at home all evenin'. 
Doctor Sleight wants you to prove — " 

Harold caught these words from the excited black 
youth as his animal whirled him to the north end of 
the town. 

Strange noises began to be born on the night 
breeze. Harold thought he saw the flashes of many 
torches. He urged his steed faster. Soon he dis- 
tinguished shouts. Suddenly, without a moment's 
warning, he found himself whirled into a great open- 
ing packed with people. The hush of death was upon 
them. He saw a circle formed, lit up with flaring 
torches held by a number of white men. Three of 
them held what proved to be a well-dressed young 
negro, who was shivering and shaking and making 
the most frantic gesticulations. His collar had been 
torn off and a fourth white man was adjusting a long 
piece of hempen rope. This had been drawn about 
the unfortunate man's neck, who struggled like a 
demon. The crowd seemed to be absorbed in this 
proceeding. Every eye in this vast assemblage, in 
which whites and blacks were about evenly divided, 
was straining itself to see. When the fatal noose had 
been adjusted a mighty yell arose. Above all other 
voices was heard that of Sleight, the mulatto doctor. 
He shrieked aloud that his son was innocent ; he 



200 



HAROLD. 



svv r ore ; he cursed the would-be murderers ; he cried 
about for vengeance until a powerful man, with a 
brown, stubby beard, grabbed him from behindhand 
choked him into silence. Then two others gagged 
the boy, all the while pointing ominous-looking shot- 
guns and revolvers at those blacks who offered any dis- 
position to rescue their friends. 

" Gr — d— you, hush your mouth ! Run him up, 
boys, the marshal's coming ! Ran him up !" 

The powerful man with the stubby beard now ran 
to and fro. 

u Clear the circle ! Move back ! Every man move 
back ! Make a space for the boys ! We'll teach 
these to attack our woman. ' ' 

The crowd gave vent to a horrible, responsive yell. 
The negroes on the outskirts looked on, helplessly fas- 
cinated. 

" Hey there, Tim ! What in Christ's name are 
yo' waitin' for ? String him up, why don't yo' string 
him?" 

A black solitary figure sprang like an apparition into 
the midst of the mob. Harold's eyes gleamed fire, 
like one inspired. His voice rang out like a trum- 
pet. 

u Men of Columbia," he thundered, "stop! In 
the name of God and justice release that man. He is 
innocent — I swear it and can prove it." 

The arms of the men holding Robert Sleight fell to 
their sides as if paralyzed. The crowd looked at one 
another as if in a dream. The tongues of the ring- 
leaders clove to the roofs of their mouths. Several 
were frozen with superstitious fright. When had 



HAROLD. 



201 



such a negro as this been seen or lieard of before. 
Away — away ! this was no negro ! 

" Men of Columbia,' ' the voice rang out once more, 
" I stand ready to answer for that black boy's inno- 
cence with my own life ! Bind me now and hang me 
instead if you find I lie to you. I can call twenty 
witnesses to prove that he was with me on the night 
it is charged he did this heinous crime." 

" Who the hell is this ?" gasped the chief leader, 
in a dazed sort of a way. " See here, young fellow ; 
yo' ain't no nigger/' 

" No," murmured fifty voices in unison ; " he ain't 
no nigger." 

But the spirit of vengeance seemed to have flickered 
out of the crowd. They marvelled, and they had quit 
clamoring for blood. 

The big man made a movement toward Harold. 
Another held a blazing torch before his face. 

" So help me Christ, who are you ?" 

A score of deadly weapons menaced the intrepid 
black. 

"Will you hear me?" he began, just as the man 
who questioned reached out his powerful palm and 
slapped him violently in the face. A tremor frightful 
to see ran the length of Harold's body. 

At the same instant the mayor of the city and a party 
of men burst through the crowd. In the party w T as 
the sheriff. The latter was attired in his shirt and 
trousers only. 

" Disperse ! disperse !" he shouted. " Every man 
of you disperse or suffer the consequences ! The 
man that played me this trick will have to answer to 



202 



HAROLD. 



the law. I know you, Joe Troup, and you, too, 
Hank Jackson. If you go away peaceably, maybe 
this' 11 be the last of it." 

The crowd thinned out as by magic. A few negroes 
knocked on the head by the butt end of a few revolvers 
was all the damage done. 

u Sold again, by G — !" called out the powerful 
man, and laughed a coarse laugh. 

A lot of other citizens who had come up were all 
that were left. 

u I am sorry this lias occurred," said one of them, 
whose silvery hair was cut short and who wore glasses. 

The man who had come so near to death was busy 
ungagging his father. Harold seemed to have van- 
ished into thin air. It is strange how quickly a 
crowd can disperse. 

" Yes, I, too, am grieved.'* The last speaker was 
about thirty years old, and spoke with a Northern 
accent. " It begins to look as though the old times 
had come back, doesn't it ?" 

" How long have you been here, Thorpe ?" 

" Eleven years." 

" Urn ! then this has only occurred three times in 
that period. You know as well as I do why the old 
Klan feeling has broke out again. It won't be long 
before the Northerners will begin packing their 
trunks to go home." 

" Or, worse than that, an army of five thousand 
United States troops quartered upon us. 1 wonder 
if this is likely to occur again soon. I don't believe 
the boy was guilty." 

" Neither do I. Henry Jones trumped up the 



HAROLD. 



203 



charge because tlie nigger Sleight brought about his 
defeat when he ran for sheriff. " 

" That's it, eh ? Well, I wish this would not get 
to the ears of the North, but that is impossible." 

" Ah, Mr. Dixon, it isn't that. It is the way in 
which it reaches the ear of the North. Why those 
d— d correspondents will garble columns of an inci- 
dent, which the people now are sorry for, and which, 
you see, has turned out harmless." 

" You are right ; but the correspondents say they 
must do their duty ; besides, if it wasn't they, it 
would be somebody else. I'm mighty sorry it oc- 
curred, anyway." 

Each of these gentlemen represented the better ele- 
ment of the city. They thought most of what the 
North would say. It was uppermost in the mind 
of this class. 

The local newsdealer had his hands full in tele- 
graphing for supplies. These little affairs, whether 
they had a fatal termination or not, were bread in the 
mouth of this personage. By the sensational sheet of 
the metropolis the South gauged the North's opinion 
of it. 

The correspondents were at a loss to find Harold. 
It seemed as if the earth had opened and swallowed 
him up. 

Indeed, the black did little more than bid adieu to 
the doctor, his host, and acknowledge the gratitude 
showered upon him. Harold took the next train 
travelling to westward. Nothing more was needed. 
A slap in the face, administered by a white man ! It 
was the first time he had ever been smitten. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



" The determination to eliminate the negro as a political and 
social factor is complete. It is not disguised, and there is neither 
equivocation nor subterfuge. While there are none who would 
restore the African to slavery, there are few who believe him lit 
for freedom." 

Calhoun* Brady was indisputably one of the fore- 
most men of the South. His matchless eloquence and 
undoubted sincerity won him a hearing from the 
North at a time when men were bat little disposed to 
listen, when the memory of the Great Conflict, as it 
was called, still rankled hotly in their breasts. His 
name itself had come to be regarded as a synonym 
for the " New South" — a South of commerce, of 
industries, of manufacture. Under this new regime, 
it was plain that some pronounced character must 
stand forth as a type of what was to follow. Calhoun 
Brady, Esq., was a silhouette among outlines. His 
intellect was not so broad as long, not so distinctive as 
it was representative. Men admired his temerity. 
They called his philosophy courage. He was the first 
to come forward and say, 6i I forget" It was a hard 
sentence, but Calhoun Brady mastered it and repeated 
it upon every occasion that offered itself. When the 
indignities and insults of the period of Reconstruction 
were over, he felt himself animated by a thoroughly 
native spirit. He said : " I may as well put eenti- 



HAROLD, 



205 



ment in my pocket. Now for business." He saw 
that sentiment was not going to rehabilitate the 
South, to build its mills and restore its mines and 
plantations. His chest swayed, his right arm gesticu- 
lated, and his voice rang clear as a clarion, and all the 
people, his neighbors, said after him : 

66 It is just as well to put sentiment in our pockets. 
Now we will proceed to business.' 5 

Never was nation so shattered and demoralized ; 
never did any country recuperate its fortunes more 
speedily. People looked at Calhoun Brady, espe- 
cially the croakers and huggers of sectionalism, and 
wondered if he were not, after all, half right. Some, 
indeed, there were who saw something higher in the 
motives for which their fathers and brothers fought 
and died, and said he was the South 5 s greatest enemy. 
Others pointed to the mill chimneys, the prosperous 
cities, and busy forges, and said he was her best friend. 
It is a paradox. They were both right. 

But underneath all this material prosperity men at 
the North claimed that the treacherous embers of race 
hatred smouldered, capable in a moment of being 
fanned into a terrible flame. 

Above all things, Harold desired to see this great 
man and talk with him. Through him he knew he 
could get at the heart of the Southerner, for this man 
was never equivocal ; he was not afraid of utterance. 
Calhoun Brady was not two-faced. He prided him- 
self on his perfect candor and catholicity. He re- 
ceived at diverse times many negroes in his house, and 
treated them with the utmost consideration. But he 
saw at once that Harold was cast in a different intel- 



206 



HAROLD. 



lectual mould from ordinary negroes. His fame, too, 
had preceded him. Thus in every respect Bright's 
visit to the sage was auspicious. 

" To see you, sir," began Harold, " is the motive 
of my visit to this city. I wish to ask you something. 
Can 1 hope that you will meet me half-way ?" 

The other smiled, not unkindly. 

" You may," he replied, slowly ; " but first let me 
see if I can't divine all your questions." 

Calhoun Brady then bit the end off a cigar, lazily 
lit it, placed the match carefully in a receptacle, and 
continued : 

" You are a negro brought up and educated in a 
foreign land, unaware of the existence of race prob- 
lems and race oppression, or even of race itself. You 
come to this country, you remain here— I believe five 
years, is it not ? — and finding yourself irrevocably 
classed with six millions instead of seventy millions, 
or the whole social body, you take up arms at once, 
not for yourself, but in defence of the six millions 
who are ostracised. You come to me just now, if 
I am not mistaken, as a plaintiff nursing a wrong, 
expect to ask and be answered. I have too good an 
opinion of your intelligence and acquirements not to 
plan a different course for us both. We shall reverse 
your intended method. I shall — for the first time in 
my life, I reckon — state the case of the white man 
before a colored jury, because," he added, " I sup- 
pose you will print this in your newspaper. 

" Let us go back to the beginning arid see how your 
ideas of the facts tally with mine. 

" Thousands of your ancestors were captured on 



HAROLD. 



207 



the African coast by their own brethren, sold into 
slavery, and subsequently transferred to this country. 
Other countries would not have them. England would 
not receive them at any price, Spain and Portugal had 
outgrown them, Brittany murdered them as fast as 
they were smuggled on her coast ; but this was a new 
country, a vast tract which needed cultivation and set- 
tlement. Immigrants would not come out quick 
enough, so serfdom was absolutely demanded, as in 
all rudimentary states — Greece, Rome, Russia, for ex- 
ample. The primary thing to be done, apparently, 
was to chain the Indians and put them to work ; but 
the Indian, being of a different species from the Afri- 
can, would not work ; indeed, he would cheerfully 
dash his brains out against a tree-trunk first. The 
captured Indian was useless, the captured African 
was valuable. The slave trade prospered, and in turn 
was abolished ; the country was emancipated from 
sterility both in population and soil, but stilly the 
slaves remained. An evil unforeseen but inevitable 
transpires. The slaves accumulate after the need for 
them has past. They are of a separate color and 
habit, and can never, like the slaves of Rome and 
Russia, blend with the dominant class. 

" Slavery happens to be one of those evils the in- 
tensity of which is best seen at a distance. Its full 
dread form is then best appreciated. At any rate, 
the slaves were men, and one part of the country in- 
terferes and drags master and man apart. The slave 
was a sore in the master's vital part. It kept him 
from that inestimable boon, self-dependence. A race 
of effeminates was imminent. A man counted not 



208 



HAKOLD. 



his brain, his hands, his gifts, but his slaves. The 
South sees all this clearly enough now. The North 
acted the physician's part" and cut away the sore, and 
the country after a period of sanative quiescence 
sprang to its feet, and what do you see ? Why, 
look at our mills, our factories, our newspapers ; 
look at our homes ; and, in short, our progress in 
every department of social, industrial, and literary 
life." 

Calhoun Brady arose as he said this, smiling and 
self-satisfied. He puffed a little at his cigar. 

66 Now for your questions. First, yon are going 
to ask me if I approve of the suffrage of the ex-slave 
being trampled upon — a suffrage that was given him 
by order of the national Congress and embodied in an 
imperishable Constitution. Why, you ask, is the 
black man cheated of his vote ? You ask me to 
admit that, if he votes, that vote is never counted 
when there is any danger of his securing a majority. 
Well, Bright, suppose I admit it, what then ? A man 
whose house is burning down and who throws his 
chattels out of the window naturally runs a risk of 
breakage. The Southern people expect to break 
something in order to save their homes and families. 
6 But the Constitution ! ' you say. Exactly ; but the 
Constitution is not godlier or greater than our fire- 
sides. The Constitution was framed to secure the 
greatest good to the greatest number. We are the 
greatest number. It aims to secure fairness and 
equity to all. Then this is a peculiar case ; for if 
you give the minority their rights you irretrievably 
damn the majority." 



HAROLD. 



209 



Harold had been listening intently and with pa- 
tience. He now interrupted by asking : 

" Mr. Brady, may I suggest wherein lies the deep 
damnation of fairness ?" 

Mr. Brady hesitated. 

" If you were a Southern nigger," he said, frankly. 
" I should not answer you ; but if my answer wounds 
your feelings, they are wounded for a third person. 
First, then, because the negro is a curse to us. In its 
own sphere your race is all right, but not among ours. 
To be sure, we brought the slave here, or our fore- 
fathers did, and you say we have got to provide for 
his descendants. Perhaps we are being justly pun- 
ished. But you are above your race mentally. Try 
and look at the case fairly from a Caucasiao stand- 
point. Does our having to provide for you — suppos- 
ing that you were one — mean that we shall take you 
into the bosom of our family ; does it even mean that 
we shall share with you an equal privilege in that 
glorious citizenship which took centuries of civiliza- 
tion to establish— you who but yesterday were savages 
and may at any moment relapse into barbarism % 
Citizenship cannot be held too lightly ; let us see if 
you are competent to share that citizenship. Could 
you sustain yourself for one moment in competition 
with any one of the thirty odd nationalities which 
already inhabit this country ? We set apart Liberia 
for you, did we not ? and the moment the white man 
withdrew his arm your vaunted structure fell away, 
and Liberia, which in the hands of any other race 
would have been a success, is now little more than a 
desert. Tou yourself are a proof of what is possible 



210 



HAROLD. 



to do for the race individually, but — I speak plainly 
— do you think my wife and children would not shrink 
from you as a companion and intimate, with all your 
education and accomplishments ? They would do it 
instinctively, just as the horse shrinks from contact 
with the camel. You are, to speak more plainly still, 
a marvellous piece of art or of mechanism. Nature 
furnished the rough clay and man has moulded and 
modelled you — " 

" I did not come here to be insulted, Mr. Brady," 
said Harold, hotly. 

A cold chill was running down his spine as the other 
spoke. 

" There, excuse me, Bright. I have no wish to 
offend your feelings in the least. If I speak too 
plainly, it is with the laudable desire of convincing 
you that your race is not like yourself — that you are 
an exception. Consider the difficulty in the process of 
refining six million blacks from birth, and then consider 
that even so refined we should still shrink from contact 
with them as comrades, and how much more as bed- 
fellows. Suppose we permitted your race — ignorant, 
bestial, and headstrong — to gain political predomi- 
nance. Suppose you elected a negro governor and 
legislature of Mississippi or South Carolina (and we 
once attempted the experiment), what white man 
would obey their laws ? Ton know the white man 
better than that. What then ? Anarchy would en- 
sue — a total disrespect on the part of the Caucasian 
population for law and order, as proceeding from con- 
stitutionally qualified officers. There would have to 
be a government foe the whites as well as for the 



HAROLD. 



211 



blacks This truth remains at the bottom of all the 
race differences in the South ; the two races can not 
assimilate socially and will not cohere politically. 

" Why, even Nature, the all- wise mother, has pro- 
claimed against amalgamation. Mulatto, quadroon, 
octoroon, and — stop ! — there Nature has set her seal. 
- Thus far,' says Nature, ' shalt thou go and no far- 
ther. ' An octoroon and a white are powerless to per- 
petuate the breed of a hybrid race. If the white man 
and black man must live side by side, it must be as a 
separate and distinct race. 

" Whatever we do that smacks of injustice to 
Northern eyes is done for the best. The North re- 
moved the tumor on the civilization of the South, 
but left the scarred scab still among us. That is 
poor surgery, if good politics. If I might make a* 
joke on so grave a subject, I should be inclined to 
wonder why the North did not do as every good sur- 
geon does, and would have done, place so interesting 
a specimen in his Cabinet. But no ; the Republican 
Party is too shrewd for that. Votes, but no offices. 
They have changed professions since the war, and it 
is their opponents who have become the healers. 

" But we loved you ; there was a time when the 
negro was dear to us. We alone understand your 
race." 

u Yes," broke in Harold, bitterly ; " you loved us 
as you loved your dog ; you loved us as an animal ; 
but when we arose and showed that we were men — " 

" Exactly. Our love turned to disgust. Well, can 
you, who may regard history impartially, w T onder at 
it ? It is impossible that we can ever hate the negro. 



212 



HAEOLD. 



The great mistake was in insisting that he should be 
placed on a level with us." 

" Well, the insistence was successful," said the 
other. 

" Then your race had better keep its mouth tightly 
closed. It has only now to thank its friends and the 
eternal law of compensation. The two races can. 
never assimilate nor can you ever get us to regard 
you as we regard ourselves. It is no use your trying, 
Bright, to agitate your race in this country. The 
key-note of all your talk and writings is white recog- 
nition, and that you will never get as long as the sky 
is blue above us and Almighty God fashions animals 
and men after their kind." 



CHAPTER XXIX. 



14 Education will ultimately render a collision between the races 
inevitable. " — Ingalls. 

After Calhoun Brady's revelations it appeared very 
much, then, as if the future, as he had mapped it out, 
were a huge blank for Harold. It was only after he 
left Brady's presence that the full significance of what 
he had just heard burst upon him. He felt that he 
had heard and seen enough to convince him that any 
further writing and teaching was hypocrisy, rank and 
dangerous. 

It is true, he had been partially conscious of this 
truth for months, but he had hardly expected it to be 
preached as the doctrine of the white man. Harold 
was too acute and conscientious not to see the mean- 
ness and pettiness of attempting to combat this doc- 
trine with mere words. He observed, with a very 
active eye, the horde of negro preachers and politi- 
cians who thus preyed upon the credulity of his race, 
and despised them all. 

If he had stopped here all might yet have been well ; 
but he began to despise himself. The germ of misery 
he had borne in his soul for five dreary years took 
root and branch, and a great Upas-tree of despair 
seemed to extend its noisome foliage over his whole 
life. He lay awake on his bed conning over what he 



214 



HAEOLD. 



had heard and proving the truth of every word which 
had been uttered respecting himself. 

He thought of Emily Kurtz with a shudder. He 
saw himself very near that fate, very near indeed. 
The only thing that separated him from such a life of 
morbid desolation was his manhood. He felt that he 
had the use of his right arm. Harold could hate to 
a purpose* 



CHAPTER XXX. 

1 * For it is, in truth, more merciful to extirpate a hundred thou- 
sand beings at once, and to fill the void with a well-governed 
population, than to misgovern millions through a long succession 
of generations."— On Sir William Temple, 

On a clear, bright morning early in November the 
newsboys were shouting about in the New York 
streets like mad. The train on which Harold was 
borne back to the metropolis had barely shot under 
the depot arches before a train-boy came headlong 
through the car with an armful of " extras. " Few 
of the passengers, busy as they were in arranging 
their exits, could help smiling at the lad's enthusi- 
asm — the cry of " extra" was to them so thoroughly 
metropolitan. Some of them purchased papers. 
Harold was engaged in strapping his valise when the 
vendor stopped in front of him. 

" I guess you want a paper, don't you ?" he said, 
half grinning — " all about the colored massacre down 
South." 

The other passengers were filing out of the car. 
Only one of them turned back and laughed. Har- 
old hastily bought a paper. It was a copy of the 
Sun. In bold, black letters the head-lines started 
thus : 



216 



HAROLD. 



FIFTY NEGKOES KILLED. 

A Deliberate Uprising of Whites in South Carolina. 
horrible scenes of bloodshed. 

General Wade Hamilton Yainly Appeals to the 

Mob. 

three white men mortally wounded. 

The subsequent account was most meagre, but it 
bore little evidence of exaggeration. Extras were 
being issued rapidly. At the conclusion of the heavily 
leaded lines was this sentence : 

" Another extra of the Sun, giving the complete 
particulars of the massacre, will be ready at 9.30 a.m." 

After the first shock Harold read the lines with a 
spasm, not of horror, not of indignation, but of tri- 
umph. His blood grew rapidly on fire. His eyes 
were bloodshot, and he left the train like a drunken 
man. 

****** 

An hour later he burst into L'Heureux's office. 

" Now, now /" he exclaimed. " What are you 
going to do now ?" 

L'Heureux was busy reading the account of the 
massacre. All the morning papers were spread in 
confusion before him. He looked up astonished. 

" How d'ye do, Bright," he said, somewhat coldly; 
but the other refused his hand. 

" Tell me, L'Heureux, what you are going to do," 
he repeated. 

" I have wired to a friend at Columbia to send me 



HAROLD. 



217 



all the particulars. You see, Bright, we want the 
truth first. I ought to get an answer within an hour. 
I shall then send a message to the President, demand- 
ing that the section be put immediately under martial 
law, and that a million colored citizens at the North 
rely upon him to visit justice upon the murderers. 
"What more can be done ?" 

The other listened impatiently. 

" Aren't you going to call a mass-meeting ?" 

"What for? It will only incite additional vio- 
lence. But stay, I'll see Bartlett at once and arrange 
a meeting of sympathy on the day of the funeral." 

" And that is all ?" returned Harold, hotly. " In- 
cite additional violence ! We want it — we want vio- 
lence. Vengeance is what we want and what we will 
have. Fifty men have been shot down for no other 
reason than their color. We will have a hundred 
of their lives as a penalty. They are trying to ex- 
terminate us by the shot-gun ! You are a fool, 
L'Heureux, if you don't see that. ' The shot-gun is 
the only solution of the nigger problem.' A white 
man told me that. And you fear violence — you /" 

" You are too excited to be rational, Bright," was 
the other's only comment. 

" Rational or not, I shall do my best to avenge 
this horror. You can go your path, I shall go mine. 
It is no use depending on the white man. Why, look 
here!" Harold fairly shrieked; " look — look at the 
paper — the Governor has refused to have the troops 
remain out. Blood for blood. Blood for blood, do 
you hear me ?" 



218 



HAROLD. 



And he kept his word. 

It was Thursday. The low studded ceiling of the 
mighty hall seemed to thrill and threaten under the 
intensity of the cries. Good, harmless cheering was 
left to less earnest assemblages than this — this ocean 
of black faces. The negroes were too excited to 
merely cheer the speakers. The platform was crowded 
with black bono rabies, lawyers, doctors, and preachers. 
Speaker after speaker rose and added fuel to the fire. 
The hot African rejected calmness. There were no 
canny souls to come forward and plead extenuating 
circumstances or counsel moderation. If such a one 
had come forward now, he would have been fortunate 
in not being torn limb from limb, so passionate had 
grown the mob. 

Fifty fathers and Ir others, even mothers and sisters, 
had heen foully murdered ! The white murderers 
stalked untouched over their graves J The hlach man 
had no rights, not even to turn when trodden upon / 
Revenge on the White Pest ! 

Such was the substance of the evening's anarchy. 
All at once a semi-hush fell on the vast throng, and 
the tall, active figure of Harold Bright stepped beside 
the chairman. 

His eyes were frightfully bloodshot and his cheeks 
were sunken. Nothing in face or manner suggested 
the Harold who had stepped on these shores five years 
before. His fingers had a habit of clutching convul- 
sively at the desk before him. 

66 Brother-slaves !" were his first words. This was 
the signal for the mob to go mad. They shrieked and 
gesticulated, each man for himself. Three thousand 



HAROLD, 



219 



sets of grinning teeth glistened while the tumult 
raged. Outside the hall a captain of police asked 
another captain of police whether it would not be 
wise to clear the hall. 

" Nonsense, " said his fellow-officer, laughing; 
" the niggers aren't going to do anything but yell. 
They think it's a regular cake-walk." 

Harold Bright continued his speech. It was he 
who had called the meeting, as chairman of the Afro- 
American Citizens' Committee. The mob hung on 
his lips. 

" We have been passive — so passive ; we have been 
obedient ; we have obeyed all the laws the white man 
has chosen to make for us ; we have been patient ; 
we have been long-suffering and forgiving — have we 
not, fellow-slaves ?' ' 

" Hear, hear !" thundered the sable mass a 

" But we have been patient, I fear, too long. We 
have been passive too long. Now, now is the time 
for vengeance P ' 

It was at this point that fifty of the most ferocious 
negroes suddenly left the hall. 

The swaying figure on the platform did not pause. 

"Hate !" " Eevenge !" " The shot-gun and the 
torch !" were some of the words which rose above the 
tumult. 

" Seven millions of wronged souls cry from the 
blood of their fathers and brothers for their rights ! 
White men, you can't get rid of us ! We will be with 
you always — hear that !" 

# # * * 

Another negro orator arose. Five sentences had 



220 



HAEOLD. 



been uttered, when a flushed mulatto face crushed his 
way in from the rear of the rostrum and then stopped, 
wedged in by the mass. It was L'Heureux. He 
hastily scribbled on a piece of paper, with his hands 
held high in air. 

" Pass that on to Mr. Bright," he said, hoarsely. 
On it was written : 

" The police have orders to clear the hall. War- 
rants are out for your arrest. You must fly at once. 

" L'Heureux." 

4f 7S" "X" ^fc 

In less than an hour it was known from the Battery 
to Harlem that twenty houses owned by Southerners 
had been ruthlessly fired and five citizens murdered 
in their beds. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

" The destruction of error by the potency of truth." — Platform 
Anii- Slavery Congress, 1833. 

The newspapers the next morning told the story 
with varied comment. The whole town was in a 
ferment of excitement. 

Men went down to their offices armed, and negro em- 
ployes in banks, stores, and warehouses were regarded 
with horror and suspicion. Hundreds were discharged 
on the spot, and made no attempt to seek elsewhere 
for employment. 

BLACK ANARCHY RAMPANT ! 
So ran the Herald' } s head-lines : 

A Night of Horror Unsurpassed in the City^s 

History, 

Fire, Murder, and Pillage* 

five honored citizens massacred. 

Full Account of What Transpired at the Cooper 
Union Meeting. 

Bright, the Negro Anarchist, said to have escaped. 

While All is Quiet at Columbia, 

there are Uprisings in Oihe>r Cities, 



222 



HAROLD. 



This told the effect on the public mind. This was 
on Friday morning. On Saturday the whole affair was 
reviewed ad infinitum in leaders by the newspapers. 

" The long-expected has happened/ ' said the Sun. 
. . . ' 6 We have long called attention to the growing 
vindictiveness of the Northern negro population, and it 
is generally understood that the authorities were prop- 
erly warned beforehand of the danger of such a meet- 
ing as was held in Cooper Union last Thursday night. 
The wealth and prominence of the citizens who were 
foully assassinated enhances the horror of the occur- 
rence. . . . But the question that will continue 
to be asked is, why Northern negroes, who are treated 
among us with almost fraternal consideration, should 
turn to murder and pillage, a course which the negro 
of the South shrank *from doing ? Is it that they have 
grown stronger and fiercer from close and friendly con- 
tact with white men ? ... In Africa, travellers 
tell us, the negro is savage and bloodthirsty. During 
his period of American slavery he was known to be 
docile to a marked degree. Is it possible that he is 
now reverting to his original repressed characteris- 
tics ?" 

" It is idle," observed the Tribune, " for the author- 
ities to incarcerate four hundred and fifty of our col- 
ored population, under the belief that they have re- 
moved all source of further violence. . . . No one 
can loathe the frightful crimes that were committed in 
this city Thursday night more than does the Tribune ; 
but it must not be forgotten that the colored race has 
been goadedand maddenedinto reprisal. . . . After 
all has been said about the estimable characters of the 



HAROLD. 



223 



dead men, the latter certainly laid themselves open to 
violence by their own actions. Three of them publicly 
refused, in an interview with different members of the 
Southern Society, and printed in the Herald on the 
morning of the Cooper Union meeting, fco condemn 
the South Carolina assassins. ... Society is 
just beginning to reap a fearful harvest out of its 
apathy to the question of black men's rights." 

The World said : " Following close upon the whole- 
sale massacre in the South, the horror of the occurrence 
is accentuated. It is impossible that its startling sig- 
nificance can be lost. . . . The World has from 
time to time printed interviews w 7 ith leaders of South- 
ern sentiment, in which such an outbreak was fore- 
shadowed. . . . Several years ago, it will be re- 
membered, the chiefs of the Republican Party urged 
the negroes to the dagger and torch. Had any por- 
tion of the blacks of the South followed this advice, 
they would have been exterminated to a man. The 
unity of antagonism there is so strong that the white 
populace would have arisen and hewn them down 
without mercy. . . . But at the North the black 
assassin does not seriously endanger or compromise his 
race. He himself is in no more danger of communistic 
violence than the Italian, Pole, or Chinese criminal. 
Consequently the leaders and promoters of Thursday 
night's horror chose their ground well. ... A 
handful of negroes have merely been discharged from 
their employment, and the populace remarks to itself, 
6 1 told you so.' " 

The foreign editors viewed the episode with min- 
gled excitement and self-gratulation. " Long ex- 



224 



HAROLD. 



pected " and " America is reaping the fruits of her 
apathy" was the gist of their criticisms. 

" Perhaps the terrible occurrences at New York 
and in South Carolina," remarked the Times, " will 
have the effect of opening the eyes of the Americans 
to the gravity of the race question. Laissez-faire 
has been their motto too long in this matter. If it 
should prompt Congress to immediate action, the five 
honored citizens of New York who were so foully 
murdered will not have died in vain." 



CHAPTER XXX1L 



" But when Convention sent his handiwork, 

Pens, tongues, feet, hands combined in wild uproar.'* 

— Bybon. 

Did public opinion, so long and lazily gathering 
itself together, turn its eye away from all other ques- 
tions and look this in the face ? 

Perhaps. It was strange — u damnably strange," 
many said — that people had never come to consider 
this an important issue before. You are quite right, 
rings of national politicians had agitated it among 
themselves, and statesmen had written about it in 
fashionable reviews. 

But all the efforts of the political tricksters only 
succeeded in raising an eccentric cloud of dust, which 
pretty effectually blinded the eyes of the masses, who 
were to do the business in their own way. 

And as for the learned statesmen, why, they wrote 
for fashionable reviews, for which the editors of 
these fashionable reviews paid — well, not unfashion- 
able checks. That was the end of it. 

Indeed, for a time it looked as if the black blot on 
the national escutcheon were not to be removed, but, 
instead, the whole thing were to be circumlocutorily 
dodged. 

For many weeks after the disappearance of Harold 



226 



HAKOLD. 



Bright, and after the excitement born of the tragedy 
had somewhat subsided, solutions of the problem were 
in order. 

Solving ! Solving ! At the Fifth Avenue clubs, at 
the saloons in West Broadway the perpetual solving 
went on. It seemed in many cases as if it were the 
hopeless task of trying to make black white, and white 
black. As if such a thing could ever be done ! Yet 
for a time it was quite a la mode. 

" But," cried the child, in the old fairy tale, " he 
hasn't anything on !" 

The child may have been particularly dull — a very 
ordinary child — indeed, a remarkably stupid child, 
but nonetheless on that account entitled to the credit 
of making a highly important discovery. Who knows 
what might have happened if all had continued to see 
people gallop about naked, because they were told it 
was the proper thing to pretend to be clothed ? 

When men's powers of reasoning have become 
addled with syllogisms, they reason largely from a 
formula set by knaves. 

And so the Child whose vision was perfectly simple 
came to set them right and tell the country that it 
was all wrong, that it was being hoodwinked, that He 
had nothing on, in* fact. That the attributes and 
power and virtues with which he was popularly invested 
were all imaginary, hypothetical, and supposititious. 

" There is no question about it," said the Child 
(who represented a very obscure Congressional dis- 
trict, by the way), "he is absolutely bare. Away 
with deceit. He has nothing on" 

# # * * # * 



HAROLD. 



Along the well-trod path that led around the mere 
at Dubersly and over the wooded summit of the tiny 
hill strode a familiar figure. The rays of the dying 
sun threw his port into bold relief. A little stouter, 
perhaps, but with the same brow. Slightly aged, but 
erect. As the sun sunk into its own radiant revery, 
the great statesman was pondering over the contents 
of a letter which ran in this wise : 

" Sir : This, the last human epistle my hand shall 
ever pen, I address to you, who are the cause of my 
consciousness and the murderer of my happiness. 
Not from your lips, but from the world's, have I 
learned the history of Inigo Bright' s Experiment ; and 
it is on this paper and with this pen that I purpose to 
record its irrevocable finale. The hate and horror 
with which I regard you is too intense for me to ex- 
press in mere words or to cause me to attempt vain 
deeds. I have often thought that if I could crush 
you in my palm I should be supremely content to 
follow you to your grave. But enough of this. 
You, the idol of your fellows, the darling of the 
nation, can afford, no doubt, to be complacent over 
your exploit. I understand from a copy of the Times, 
which I found here in Cairo, that yon 6 threw me \rp 
when you found me headstrong. ' You washed your 
hands of the affair when you found that you could 
not mould mind as well as body. That trenches 
largely on God's province. Very good. I do not 
seek to know your motives. 1 shall be generous 
enough, however, to confide in you something that 
will, doubtless, interest you. Perhaps you believed 



me dead ere this. Did you think that I had dieJ by 
my own hand ? I love life too well. Suffering has 
made me a philosopher, which your education failed 
to do. 

" To-morrow is my birthday. I shall be twenty-six 
years old. What a capital farce my life has been ! 
Some modern Ovid ought to make his fortune trans- 
posing a new and greater metamorphoses of mortals, 
with my portrait as a frontispiece ! 



Of 



HAROLD. 



229 



fit <^ /f^jfK , $ Jfhu^f f 

ft 

^w, , . / 

(Here the handwriting of this communication grows 
exceedingly obscure.) 

" Well, I have no grudge against you. I shall for- 
get you to-morrow. 1 am going to do what my 
brutal fathers ... I call them brutal to-day, 
to-morrow I shall approve . . (The rest of 

the letter was illegible.) 

At the bottom of the leaf was the following, evi- 
dently cut with a penknife from a copy of Tennyson's 
Poems. Several lines were ingeniously erased : 

" There the passions, cramped no longer, shall have scope and 
breathing space, 
I will take some savage woman : she shall rear my dusky 



230 



HAROLD. 



Iron-jointed, supple-sinewed, they shall dive and they shall 
run, 

Catch the wild- goat by the hair, twirl their lances in the sun ; 
Whistle back the parrot's call and leap the rainbow of the 
brooks, 

Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books. 
For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, as I go." 



THE END. 



HAROLD. 

The Story of a White Man in a Black Skin, 

One cannot read this volume without being instantly 
held spell-bound by the uniqueness of the plot, even if 
the casual reader does not profit by the conveyed teach- 
ings. No similar book of recent years possesses one- 
half its interest or its power. Mr. James Clarence Harvey, 
writing of it, says : 

"We believe there is a future for this book. It is 
strikingly realistic, fearless, vigorous and interesting," 
The Atlanta Journal says : 

" It treats the subject in a new and startling way." 
The Atlanta Constitution says : 
" It is the first time that a negro has been exploited as 
the cultured hero of a novel. His varied adventures, which 
eventually terminate in a dramatic return to Africa, stamp 
the book as thoroughly anti-negro in sentiment." 
The New York Evening Telegram says : 
" It is in point of plot and motive one of the most 
remarkable books of the year. . . . Harold is likely to 
create a ripple in literary circles both here and abroad. 
. . . But about the movements of the black man the author 
of 1 Harold' has spun a delightful web of fancy and inter- 
spersed his chronicles with deft human touches, which 
make the sad figure of the chief personage seem all the 
more real and probable. The piece of folk-lore entitled 
1 The Story o* Messiah,' appended to one of the chapters, 
is a gem in its way." 

The New York Press says : 
" The new volume is doubtless written for the purpose 
of directing popular attention to the immense importance 
of the color problem." 
The Boston Globe says : 
"There are passages in 'Harold' which will com- 
mand admiration for their fidelity to certain characters 
and events fresh in the public mind." 
The Boston Journal says : 
"'Rather a startling addition to literature on the race 
problem." 

HAROLD, 12mo, Paper. 

PUBLISHED BY 

THE GLOBE PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

Frankfort and Jacob Streets, New York. 



" Not how cheap, but 
how good 99 



H.O. 

So long as the world 
stands the best things in 
it will always cost a little 
more than the poorer. 



Sweet Clover Self-Raising Flour is another 
Of the best things. 



"FPU 

THE LEADING 

ILLUSTRATED 
WEEKL Y. 

Published Wednesdays. 
BLAKELY HALL, Editor. 

/Irtistie Illustrations, Brilliant Editorials, 

Exelu$iue 5oeiety jfeu/s. 

PATRONIZED BY THE HIGHEST CIASSES. 

General Offices: No. 140 Fifth Ave., N. Y. 



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